Does anyone know what NewsBusters is complaining about?
October 29, 2009 11:10 am ET by Simon Maloy
I marvel sometimes at the versatility of the crack bias hunters over at NewsBusters. Even though they've spent the better portions of their careers failing to make sense and embarrassing themselves, they still manage to come up with new and inventive ways to look completely foolish. Take, for example, Brent Baker's latest complaint that ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson "had time to convey President Barack Obama's praise of Edward Brooke for 'breaking barriers' as the first popularly-elected black U.S. Senator, but not to inform viewers he broke that barrier as a Republican."
OK, I'm feeling generous -- if Baker wants to argue that ABC should have identified Brooke as a Republican, that's fine. One could just as easily argue that Brooke's accomplishment transcends parties and politics. But then Baker goes on to note that Brooke was "a fairly liberal Republican," and in case you're not a regular reader of the blog, NewsBusters really, really hates liberal Republicans and they get very mad when the media fail to ID such Republicans as "liberals." So Baker is upset that ABC didn't identify as Republican someone who, by virtue of his liberalness, would otherwise be treated as a leper by his blog.
But then it gets even dumber.
Here's the context in which Baker characterized Brooke as a "fairly liberal Republican":
Neither Gibson nor [NBC's David] Gregory pointed out that after two terms representing Massachusetts, in 1978 Brooke, a fairly liberal Republican, was challenged and beaten by one of the media's liberal heroes, the late Paul Tsongas -- a Democrat who was a white guy.
Can anyone explain to me how Paul Tsongas' whiteness is at all relevant here? What is he implying -- that Massachusetts voters in 1978 were racists for voting out a black Republican? That Tsongas himself was a racist for challenging a black Republican? I seriously can't figure it out, and Baker offers no explanation.
And this is what passes for media criticism on the right.
So yeah, it's dumb. Perhaps not as dumb as Matt Lauer's terrorist neckwear, but still pretty dumb.
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There doesn't seem to be a point, but it includes "liberal hero" and race, so the wingnut reader may believe he's read something incriminating, or some sort of hypocrisy on the part of liberals.
Their brains don't work like normal humans.
I don't get the article, either. It sounds like they're trying to criticize the media for undermining the true importance of the guy and then subsequently claiming that they made him out to be too important. This totally reads as, "The media should have mentioned that this was HUGE for the Republican Party... and that it didn't last very long."
I just... I don't even...
I think it is unusual to identify historical (or historic) political figures unless they were major figures within their own party. Presidents, for example.
When you get down to senators and congresspeople, generally we get their name and the state they represented. Not their party. And the farther back in history we go, the less relevance it has, because the parties have changed so much over time.
I know what it's about I believe.
It's about the Republicans desperate attempt to 'own' any black Republican they can manage to latch onto.
They really don't have a good history in the last 2 generations dealing with race, but they have no hope of having much political power in the next couple of generations (lots of minorities will be gaining strength, and white men are losing their stranglehold on power) unless they are seen as more embracing of minorities. They have 'trophy' blacks, like Colin Powell and Sen Brooke, and they are teed off when they don't get that 'credit'.
Of course, the subject they were discussing then was Brooke's affair with Barbara Walters.
But once Nixon decided it made more sense for the Party to fish for Southern votes among the denizens of Racism Springs than among its one-time black allies, the past became irrelevant.
We have a black president.
THANK YOU.
njguy93@yahoo.com