Archive for the ‘internet/free speech’ Category

…a bunch of classified documents in the hopes of derailing the effort.

So on Morning Joe we have a panel of people all against the war commenting on it. (In fairness the entire regular panel is against the war anyway so they would have to have a guest on to defend it.) Is there outrage, is there anger and this kind of leak? Nah.

They are less excited about it then you would expect, they say it is info we mostly already know, no big surprises. Harold Ford makes the correct observation that war is generally not clean and easy and the administration needs to explain that to the public. Barnicle points out that “this is Bush info” is not going to fly.

Will anyone be prosecuted for this? Unlikely. That would depress the administration’s base that is already depressed going into a midterm. They may or may not care about Afghanistan but they sure care if it is lost on their watch.

You can be sure about one thing, you will see none of the media outrage that you did over the Palme Affair.

Bottom line, this is dishonorable act by people who don’t understand the meaning of the word and care less for the well being of the troops and the country than they do about their agenda. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law allows. This will take place sometime after the Beatles reunite by using Voodoo to revive zombified remains of George and John.

Memeorandum thread here

Update: Stacy links, thanks

It’s one thing to be angry over a situation, it’s another to decide to demagogue:

SHERROD: I know I’ve gotten past black versus white. He’s probably the person who’s never gotten past it and never attempted to get past it.

I think he would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery. That’s where I think he would like to see all black people end up again.

COOPER: You think — you think he’s racist?

SHERROD: … I think he’s so vicious. Yes, I do.

And I think that’s why he’s so vicious against a black president, you know. He would go after me. I don’t think it was even the NAACP he was totally after. I think he was after a black president.

So. I’ve gotten by black and white but the person I don’t like is a racist who wants to return us to slavery and hates the administration because Obama is black. As opposed to the actual administration that fired her which by her interpetation did so due to an attack by a racist, or the NAACP that backed said firing even though they had full context of the videos available.

It’s one thing to be angry for a day but once you decide you are going to be part of the national debate then you are a legitimate target for comment, and if she thinks Breitbart wants to bring back slavery then yup she has lost any credibility she had and deserves any ridicule she gets from it.

As Hotair puts it:

One of the lessons of this week, supposedly, is that we should beware of caricatures in racial matters, not only because people are more complicated in practice but because the fallout from misjudgment is culturally poisonous. See, e.g., the initial clip of Sherrod versus her full NAACP speech. But here she is pushing a caricature of her own — with no evidence to support a charge this incendiary — and Cooper the journalist lets it slide, presumably because he’s squeamish about siding with Breitbart against someone who, to his audience, is a sympathetic victim..

Some people handle attention different ways. I think she is in real danger of letting this stuff go to her head. Quite a shame really.

Of course this might be the media trying to bait the right too, keeping the story alive to take copy space from Journolist. We’ll see.

Memeorandum thread here.

Update: Ed Driscoll puts it much better than I did complete with Airplane Gag.

Says Donny Deutsch on Morning Joe.

Really? I maintain that the casualty is this credibility of the NAACP who as I wrote in my examiner article was the only player in this game that actually had complete information and choose for the sake of a few hours expediency to ignore it.

The administration didn’t do so well either, although the profuse apologies help mitigate it it is a problem. That’s why they are so desperate for her to take a job. Every day she no longer works for the administration and is on camera reminds them is a day where the public is reminded who fired her.

This contrasts with Breitbart. The 22% media which never liked him is instead of ignoring him (their default position) is alternatively hitting him or talking to him on camera, giving him not only page views but allows him to make his case concerning both the media and NAACP.

Oh and the problem with Rick Moran’s argument? He ignores the actual 23 paragraph article that the videos were part of. Like many at the start I saw only the video. As the story progressed I returned to what was actually written to see the case it made. In fact not only is the story ignored but so is the second clip and the big point he was making.

But hey I could be wrong, check out Moran’s memeorandum thread to see what the others think and make up your own mind.

…who when asked himself on a matter of national interest gives such a response?

If you are in the business of asking people questions for a living I would think you should not be so shy about answering them.