Right-wing media target Kagan's physical appearance
Right-wing media figures have responded to Elena Kagan's nomination to be the fourth female Supreme Court justice in history by attacking her physical appearance.
Right-wingers respond to historic nomination with vicious attacks on Kagan's looks
Boortz: "Has anyone seen Mike Myers and your new Supreme in the same room at the same time?" In May 11 tweets, right-wing radio host Neal Boortz compared Kagan to Shrek, the cartoon ogre voiced by Mike Myers in the DreamWorks film series:
Savage on Kagan's "appearance": "I find it personally grotesque," Kagan "looks like she belongs in a kosher deli." On the May 10 edition of his radio show, after a caller said Kagan was a "horrendous creature," Michael Savage replied: "Let's not, let's not comment on how her appearance is, because although I find it personally grotesque, there are many who find it attractive, and so we'll leave that out of it. Let's avoid that. Let's talk about her radical, Marxist policies."
Savage previously said on his April 9 program that Kagan "looks like she belongs in a kosher deli." Savage added: "Isn't there such a thing about the aesthetics of the appointee? Don't they have to look a -- I mean, is there a certain aesthetic that you have to -- you know, it's one thing to be a legal scholar, it's another thing like you have to look at these people. Let's put it to you this way, she's not the type of face you'd want to see on a five dollar bill." Savage later said that Kagan makes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg look like a "Kazakhstan beauty."
HumanEvents.com's Mattera: Kagan, Napolitano, Sotomayor all "look like linebackers for the New York JETS." In a May 11 tweet, HumanEvents.com editor in chief Jason Mattera wrote:
HumanEvents.com's Oddis compares Kagan to SNL's Pat. In a May 10 tweet, HumanEvents.com assistant managing editor Michelle Oddis stated, "Elena Kagan or Pat?" and posted a link to an image of the SNL character "of undeterminable sex":
Jawa Report: "Butch" Kagan "may be against limiting the number of calories in fast food." In a May 10 post headlined "Obama to Pick Elena 'Butch' Kagan For Supreme Court," Jawa Report's Howie stated, "On the bright side it appears she may be against limiting the number of calories in fast food."
JammieWearingFool compares Kagan to former CNN reporter John Holliman. In a May 10 post headlined "Separated at Birth?" JammieWearingFool asked, "Maybe it's just me, but does Elena Kagan remind anyone of former CNN reporter John Holliman?"
But yes, for the most part, the left does not go after looks! And that's because we actually have substantive things to address with the behavior of those on the right! Because they can't win a debate that's based on facts, they distort, deceive, and omit relevant info in a dishonest attempt to win the national debate. They poison the discourse with that nonsense.
Rules by Sue.
I had a poster baselessly attack me. I detailed how her attacks were bogus, and she continued on and on. It was only after repeated exhibitions of that behavior that I said what I said.
That is WHOLLY different than targeting someone's physical appearance.
This is SOLELY your personal animus towards me coming out.
I didn't poison the discourse with the "screw you" comment. It had already been poisoned by the poster making the bogus attacks towards me.
That's like saying I didn't poison your glass of water by putting arsenic in it, it's the water's fault for coming out of the faucet.
The topic is national media making attacks on Supreme Court nominees based on their looks.
Beyond the two of you, nobody really cares if two anonymous posters on a comment thread make nice or nasty to each other. Don't lose track of the importance, or lack of, your comments in an internet commentary thread. You just both end up sounding petty and silly.
I made a valid post.
He then made a personal attack. I then defended myself from that personal attack by disproving that personal attack.
So, again, NO, his behavior and mine are NOT comparable!
Why is this so difficult to understand for so many people?
You are a perfect example of the axiom "with friends like that, who needs enemies?". while i find myself in agreement with almost all that you say, I find your posts insufferable.
Huh? Exactly how is it MY fault what he said?
That's right, Andy, it's NOT my fault, not at all. But you make the false equivalency argument that it is.
You can apologize at any time.
Dell, I'm not saying this was your fault, and I'm not comparing you to righton as far as the substance of your posts. I was just noting that, for two people who spend a lot of time lecturing others about their behavior at this site, you two do have quite a little ongoing p***ing match.
There's a huge difference between MAKING a baseless personal attack and defending oneself from a baseless personal attack.
I'm baffled as to how many people can't understand this simple concept.
Yes, you do get a lot of negative attention based on personal animosity and not the substance of your comments. It's the price you pay for so vigorously challenging peoples' BS. With a couple of notable exceptions, I think most people understand that. So I don't see the benefit of you calling attention to it, especially since it inevitably leads to one of those pointless arguments.
Second, I agree that it's generally a bad idea to respond to people who have proven that they have no interest in an honest discussion of the topic at hand. But when you admonish others not to feed trolls, that, too, usually leads to one of those arguments that disrupts the thread as much as any troll.
Media Matters has a feature that allows you to report trolling, though I've never known a comment to be pulled for that reason. It appears that Media Matters tolerates trolls and lets the rest of us use our own judgment on how deal with them. Please consider doing the same.
If it sounds like I think you should back down, I don't. Just pick your battles.
But it is a little irritating when I, or anyone, is having a discussion with someone else on what may be a direct response to the topic or a tangential point, that Dolly feels it's necessary to get us back in line. It is none of her business. And you are right, report the "troll" post and move on. Nobody is forced to read any of it, or participate in any of it. It's nothing but some power control freak obsession with what? I have no clue.
And then her constant whining about why or how many thumbs down she gets, fine, it bothers her, but it's her own personal narcissistic battleground, not ours. She plays the victim because she cannot handle anyone who challenges her, in any way. It's weird. No clue why.
Of course, she will never admit to anything, she never has. She is always provoked, never the provoker, always the victim, never the perpetrator, always the reactor, never the instigator. It's ridiculous.
Maybe she will read your post and self reflect a bit, it was very constructive.
And NO, simply letting troll posts stand unchallenged is NOT a good idea, and I will NOT stop pointing them out.
And NO, if people like bintx and others like her would STOP feeding the trolls then the problem would be solved. The problem is NOT me pointing them out.
I was just offering some advice, politely I thought, to someone who claims to want to stop trolling, but who is usually ineffective at doing so.
Nothing personal.
There is no one who post here who is more likely to call some one a name or launch a personal attack. You do it so often, and always have a reason as to why you were justified in calling someone a name, just because they do not agree with you.
The sudden indignant response to others' insults probably comes off as pretty phony to anybody who's been posting here for more than a few weeks.
Remember, liberals place as much importance on personal responsibility towards others as they do themselves. Right wingers like to hold others responsible for things that didn't even happen, while cleaning their own slates every day.
It seems really clear why he got at least SOME of the thumbs down. I am baffled as to why you don't understand this.
It's NOT calling someone names if you point out why they deserve the appellation, just like it's not calling Son of Sam a murderer, but it IS calling someone a name by calling an abortion provider a murderer!
It was not a baseless personal attack. It was based upon the behavior, and it was NOT simply an attack - the bad behavior was detailed, repeatedly!
On the other hand, we have people attacking Kagan based upon her looks, which can NEVER be behavior-based.
Apples and bookcases.
But a CLEAR expression of YOUR baseless personal animus towards me.
She made numerous false charges about my behavior. And she has lied, repeatedly, over and over again, about the two quotes she told BJF she would find. She never found those quotes, because they don't exist, yet she has NEVER, not once, admitted that they don't exist, although she's been confronted with that challenge likely 20+ times. And because I have called her on that shortcoming, she has repeatedly made baseless attacks against me. Here are a few of them.
Thanks for continuing to "feed the troll." As long as you keep feeding his lies, he will continue to post them. For someone who prides herself on "debunking troll's lies" and being the A-1 troll hunter of the site, you really stink, you know it? You just fed this fraud's ego.
Wow, you are just unbelievable, aren't you?
--- But I had NOT fed the troll. I AM good at what I do, and I did NOT feed his ego. I DID call HER to account for HER behavior. If she would ADMIT to her error, then HE would lose that weapon! SHE is the one who continues to stoke his furnace with that failure to admit her error. ---
DD, you didn't read right on's post or you wouldn't have commented on his "side." Try reading it.
--- But I had NOT replied to RightON's post, first off. I had made my own post. It was NOT a reply to RO's post. So, she attacked me for an inappropriate reply to his post when it was NOT a reply to his post at all!!! And THEN she dishonestly suggests that because he happens to agree with something that MMFA says that he can't be classified as being on the OTHER side of the fence on ANOTHER issue! She accused ME of misstating his positions, when I had done nothing of the sort. And then she dishonestly accused me of NOT having the reading comprehension to understand his post - remember, MHY post wasn't a reply to his post ANYWAY, but I did, in fact, clearly understand his post, and I had actually thumbed it UP after reading it. It was SHE who messed up by getting confused about my post being a reply to his, which it wasn't, and it was HER inept behavior in not recognizing that one can be allies on one subject and enemies on another subject! ---
Maybe, DellDolly, it was just people who disagree with your comments. For someone to show a "personal animus" toward you would require some sort of evil or malevolent intent. I think that's a big reach. Maybe they just disagree with you. It happens. People disagree with me . . . sometimes I question them when it seems silly, but "personal animus"???? That's a reach.
You "feed the trolls" with your "don't feed the trolls" post
Could you not have just graciously agreed with right on's really on-point comments?
--- I have repeatedly demonstrated, as have numerous other posters, that some of the thumbs down I get are personal attacks, yet bintx suggests that it's all in my imagination - that it can't possibly be true. That's a baseless personal attack by her - yet YOU suggest that she's NEVER made an attack on anyone! It's not a "reach" to see that personal animus - it's blindness to NOT see it. And it's been specifically pointed out to her multiple times, and so it purposeful LYING to say that there's no evidence of those personal attack thumbs down. Yet she's done it multiple times. And "don't feed the trolls" posts do NOT feed the trolls. They frustrate the trolls. If those troll posts wouldn't get fed by others, I would NOT warn people to avoid them - but they don't get ignored. This is NOT rocket science, yet she unfairly smeared me again, because SHE wants to be able to feed troll posts unmolested. It ain't gonna happen. And I DID agree with his post - but I wasn't REPLYING to his post! That was HER error, that SHE mistakenly thought that my post was a REPLY to his post, and it was NOT. Her error! Totally. And so it was a bogus personal attack by her, one that I didn't deserve in ANY WAY since I hadn't been replying to HIS post! ---
She was NOT an innocent victim here. I understand you want to portray her that way, but she's not. I could list multiple other examples of that same behavior from her, her distorting what actually happened to try to make me look bad. It was not a comment made out of the blue or without much coming from her first.
But why doesn't it surprise me that you would defend her and she would defend you?
Speaking for many posters here at MMFA, screw you.
:-)
It's undeniable, for example, that many of the thumbs down I get are personal attacks on ME, and not on what I have posted. There have been times when I have simply echoed what another said, or praised what another person said (and many of those times I was not the ONLY person who responded that way to a post), yet MY posts get thumbed down and those I am replying to or those similar replies to mine did NOT!
Yet bintx refuses to admit that.
bintx FAILED to ever document the two lies she claimed that BJF had made. Yes, he made MANY lies - he's a pathological liar - but there were two on particular that she cited. He said that he had never said them, and then she spent a LOT of time replying to his troll posts instead of FINDING those quotes she asserted HAD to exist since she has a photographic memory. She then claimed that she was sick, and then too busy, but she kept claiming that they existed and she would find them.
So, I tried to find them. I tried to bolster her accusations. But those quotes, those statements, don't exist. She misread what he actually said, and she came to conclusions that weren't supportable by the available evidence.
And she won't admit to it, and so BJF continues to USE that failure on her part to ADMIT that she made accusations she couldn't support against her!
Again, he's a pathological liar, but he's right in saying that she NEVER produced those quotes! It's pretty simple, actually.
I did NOT say what I said because my "hysteria/nonsense/hypocrisy" had been exposed - I didn't have ANY to expose. That's simply yet another one of your bogus charges. You claimed I lied about her, but I didn't. You claimed I forgot to log off and log back on, but that was nonsense too.
The person who continually has hypocrisy and nonsense in their posts, and the person who continually has that behavior actually documented, is YOU, RightON. Not me. And when you get fed up with being frustrated, we all see your hysterical behavior demonstrated.
Did you forget Tina Fey? A parody of someones speech and dress is never a compliment.
What about David Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's daughte?
Come on, the left is so two-faced.
If it is acceptable to make a list of conservative women you'd most like wanna F*&k, then it is certainly ok to say someone looks like Shrek.
Maybe we can get Obamacare to cover plastic surgery then there wouldn't be so many ugly people.
It's no wonder the wingnuts are so susceptible to the false equivalence argument, they seem to have a lot of trouble telling very different things apart.
This is one of the defining traits of modern conservatism.
Examples:
Not wanting to go to war with Iraq= support for Saddam.
Believing terror suspects deserve a fair trial= support for terrorism
Believing the federal government should regulate private industry to protect the public= communism
The list goes on and on. It's one thing to struggle with genuinely difficult distinctions. It's another thing to be pathologically resistant to understanding simple ones.
And it's not always just a false equivalence, it's applying an inverse importance or credibility much of the time.
Remember that criticism of GW Bush over proven facts ( lies about Iraq war, questionable election processes) was called " Bush Derangement syndrome", while obsession with easily de-bunked nonsense ( birther stuff, imagined tax hikes) is seen as reasonable policy differences by the rightys.
They also like to apply the word "religion" to people who disagree with religion and take the word of scientists ( Global Warming, and... uh.. religion)
Like APPEARING to care about children but cutting funding for school lunch.
Like APPEARING to care about the teachings of Jesus but supporting guns and the death penalty.
Like APPEARING to care about smaller government unless over-reaching government only affects them there darkies.
All that a$$ and left with a gaping hole...
empty & sad;<
Hard to say which would be the better outcome.
Shallow as that sounds, it is far more substantive than any other complaint Rush ever made about Hillary Clinton.
If her looks don't matter, WHY bring her looks up?
Maybe Magcinic will come back
It's as predictable and dopey as the reflexive response to exposure of Fox lies with chirping about Fox ratings.
Plenty of awards left, we'll make more.
Free choice does exist, results may vary.
;)
See, if I call you stupid and reference your two posts in this thread as evidence, I have a point. Your posts do seem to indicate a certain dearth of cognitive ablility. If I also say that you smell bad, I've just injected an irrelevant postulate. I mean, it's possible that you do smell bad, but it wouldn't affect the intellectual heft, or in your case, lack thereof, of your posts. Calling Scott Brown a "teabaqgging racist homophobe who promotes violence against women," whether true or not, goes to his qualifications to be a US Senator; calling Elena Kagan ugly bears no resemblance to substantive criticism of her nomination to the Supreme Court.
Oh, by the way, Olbermann apologized.
@soze169880 - I was talking about stooping low. I am putting baseless namecalling on a par with making fun of one's looks.
But you're going to have to do better than "I'm sure Olbermann has plenty of vile things to say about people...." Come on. Olbermann's every gaffe is breathlessly "reported" on by the usual suspects. If he's said something public about someone's appearance, with the caveat that it should imply a substantial affect upon their bona fides, find it and link it. Otherwise, don't post unsubstantiated assertions. That's even more crass than name-calling.
Wow. Nothing dismisses a debate counter point quicker than the "if he could" argument. You are now flailing. Quit while you're behind.
What part of the difference between the rightwing media and a comedian do you NOT understand?
I mean, really, consider the sources. And the worst part is that they will persist and be completely shameless about it.
Funny thing is yesterdays show was on Don't ask Don't tell and how we "Need to keep it in Place"..
These people in Idaho are messed up.. I think I am alone in this state... Please send help!!
Do you REALLY not understand that there's a HUGE difference between what posters on this site say and what members of the rightwing media say in public? Really?
And do you REALLY not understand what was said at the very beginning of this thread by ME?
And have you NEVER seen thumbs down by posters like me when others HAVE attacked other people based on things they can't control, like the color of their skin, or their sexual preferences, or their looks?
And do you REALLY not get that pundits are much more fair game for ridicule than a nominee for the USSC is for her looks? Really?
...no.
Because you can't. Palin may be different things to different people but she's not ugly.
It is funny though, just about every lefty on here HAS commented in one way shape or form about Rush. Need I list the adjectives?
I don't like to pick on peoples looks, but you have to admit...Kagan looks like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage...come on...you know it's true!
Are you really suggesting Rush doesn't deserve those adjectives? Are you suggesting Rush deserves any respect at all? Really, Rush? The same Rush who called 13-year-old Chealsea Clinton the White house dog? Who called Bill Clinton a murderer for years? Who recently made a joke about Hillary Clintons "big ass"? Let's try to remember who we're talking about.
And that's to say nothing of the fact that we're commenters on a blog, not pundits with national audiences who claim to be serious commentators.
Ah...the double standard of the left! So let me get this straight. If it's a conservative, then looks are fair game? If it's a liberal, especially a woman, then she's off limits?
I've got to admit russell, you leftists have some moxie with a straight face.
Practice what ye preach...
As you've made abundantly clear this only applies for conservatives.
Hypocrite thy name is liberal!
[url= U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan is pictured as she waits for an elevator while making courtesy calls to senators with White House staffer Christopher Kang (R) on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 13, 2010. Capitol Hill Police Officer Aaron...]Kagan[/url]
Really?
And if you don't like to pick on someone's looks, then don't do it.
You don't get a free pass by saying that you don't like to do it AND THEN doing it anyway. What a tool for thinking that it DID give you a free pass, just this one, to do so!
The very same scum that quotes Bible verses on his show and waxes nostalgic about "the good ol' days,"... you know before civil rights, women's suffrage, end of slavery, etc., etc.
Like the rest of the right wing hate machine, he's racist, homophobic and shamelessly ethnocentric, but where misogyny is concerned, Weiner is in a league by himself.
Bald-headed, with a set of ears that rivals Elmer Fudd's ears in size,gaily decked out in purple's,pinks,and yellow shirts that used enough material to put sail's on one of Columbus' ships!Placed firmly on his wino-like nose are his glasses that would put the Hubble Telescope to shame!
What a putz!
Except, he is not entertaining. Your definition of entertainment is certainly amazing. I'll take your word for your narrow mindedness.
Way to miss the point yet again, dumbbell. No one has yet said that she is good looking.
Does someone have a bottle of champaign handy to celebrate seahawks' first legitimate point, when it finally comes?