Thomas Friedman Takes a Beating

The ‘Stache That Wouldn’t Die marches ever onward.

Today on the radio machine I heard the most remarkable thing. I heard a gentleman named Mr. Laith Saud (who lectures on Islamic world studies at DePaul University) toss Jerome McDonnell (the host of the Worldview program on our local NPR affiliate) a live grenade when, instead of answering Mr. McDonnell's question straightaway, (which went something like this...)

McDonnell: There is an article in the New York Times today by Thomas Friedman wherein the Mighty Mustache of Understanding purports to assay the entire history of uprisings in the Middle East...yadda yadda yadda...sorta rank their probability of success by culture, origins, what "kinds of people" they are, etc, etc... tribes with flags...acting out in countries that had been created by western map makers. What do you make of the reasons for success for some of these uprisings?

Mr. Saud instead chose to pause and then preface his answer with the following:

First, I need to say something that I don't often do, nor would I often do...and that is, OK, I'm somebody who was born in the Arab world. I'm somebody who studies this region. It's part of my professional work. Thomas Friedman has been off the ball when it comes to talking about the Arab world for going on a decade. He was a vociferous advocate of the invasion of Iraq. He pontificated as to what that would result in. And there has been absolutely no accountability on the part of the marketplace or professional journalists, academics, intellectuals or scholars to call out not only him, but other Neoliberals who have enjoined (in?) theory with no applicability to reality. OK.

This is a common theme that we see smongst journalists who talk about the Arab world. That its really a collection of artificial states and thye use this as a predicate to advocate policy.

The truth of the matter is that A) The Arab world consists of states that are far more authentic than we often claim, B) There are some artificial states in the Arab world, and many of these states are often off the register of this conversation because they tend to be allies of ours, C) these states have existed since the 1920s so I think to continue to beat the hum-drum of them being artificial states is really not doing us any good. Yet its a convenient, cute argument; its one of these Fried-isms that Thomas Friedman likes to come up with. But they're not doing anything in terms of informing us or illuminating the narrative or illuminating the facts on the ground.

Bless you, Mr. Saud. Not that Thomas Friedman will know or care that someone with credentials and access to a microphone sawed his dick off and fed it to the dogs or anything, but it positively made my day.

What is equally interesting in almost exactly the opposite way is the fact that between the time I heard the broadcast live on the air, and the time I checked with the WBEZ website to listen to the above exchange one more time so as to transcribe Mr. Saud's world accurately, someone at WBEZ excised a few of Mr. Saud's more lacerating comments as well as the name of at least one other person who Mr. Saud included in a more generalized indictment of the punditocracy and which WBEZ also censored on the taped version.

Of course this may have just been standard practice; something routinely done for the sake of time (After all, Mr. Saud's segment was followed by a long story about the awesomeness of cricket.)

Or maybe when your management has become so timorous that the future your funding can be used as a pinata by a lying goon like Andrew Breitbart, you learn to double down on minding your P's and Q's, even if that means partially-censoring some uncomfortably honest Q-and-A's.

NPR Resigns

While details of this latest (and ultimately fatal) scandal are still being pieced together, the basic information is no longer in dispute:

1. During Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ's Spring pledge drive, Mrs. Osceola Langdon -- an 84-year-old retired public school teacher and frequent public radio volunteer -- was staffing a phone bank. "I'm on the Social Security, and cain't rilly afford to give these kids much money, so it feels good to take the bus over once in awhile and hep out," Mrs. Langdon told this reporter.

2. During pledge break in Chicago's popular but mysteriously-named "848" program (which does not start at 8:48), Mrs. Langdon was overheard agreeing with a caller who referred to Republicans as "meanies" and Tea Partiers as "shockingly ignorant". "I tole her I taught history at Hugo Gernsback middle school for 38 years, and that if any one a' mah little ones had come in talkin' such fanciful nonsense, they woulda been stayin' after and cleanin' mah chalk boards for a week," Mrs. Langdon confirmed to this reporter.

3. The scandalous assertions were promptly reported to Fox News, which interrupted its ongoing coverage of who John Bolton thinks we should invade today with a "Special Alert". Sources at Fox also confirm that they are preparing a seven-part series -- "America's Fifth Columnists: Osceola Langdon, NPR and the call that Shocked a Nation!!" -- for broadcast later this month.

4. After initial and ultimately futile attempts to contain the damage by claiming that these were just "the comments of one nice old lady" that also "happened to be 100% true", the outgoing and final president of NPR issued this apology to "all Conservatives, Republicans, Centrists, Tea Party members, Corporatists, Whigs, Fascists, Copperheads, Tories, Fetal Liberationists, Randites, Neo-Nazis, Libertarians, Birchers and Dominionists throughout all time and space and across all 26 dimensions":

after which entire staff of NPR at both its national and local affiliates ritually disemboweled themselves, neatly wrapped their entrails in festive Public Radio tote bags and, with the last of their strength, scrawled "We're sooooo sorry!" on the tote bag's handy gift cards in their own blood before presenting them humbly to Andrew Brietbart and then expiring.

Meanwhile...

...in Centrist Heaven, the late David Broder was heard wondering aloud if NPR had really done enough to show its contrition.

Meanwhile...

...Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and all the rest of the

detestable tools in the Hate Media toolbox continue getting rich making models of the Devil's Tower out of their own poo on the air.

Meanwhile...

...Establishmentarian clowns like David Gregory

continue their really, really great careers unaffected by anything at all.

The Numbing Predictability of Predictability

I wonder which American entertainment outlet's story about Wan Williams losing one of his two highly-paid jobs because one of his two employers thought he was being a dick will be found under the headline "Williams Firing Sparks Calls to Defund National Public Radio" on Google News?



Oh yeah. Mr. William's other wealthy employer.

The one that just gave him a $2 million dollar bump for being a dick.

NPR Under Fire After Canning Juan Williams

News analyst Juan Williams' firing from National Public Radio for comments he made about being nervous when flying alongside devout Muslims has sparked a public outcry that includes calls for investigations and a cut in public funding to the broadcaster.

Got that? Hold on tight, because Fox PAC is going to rocket right on past the inconvenient actualities of the "story" and move on to the alleged "public outcry" over what happened to poor 'ol Wan.

And which representative of the public -- which responsible pillar of American political and cultural acumen and moderation -- has Fixed News turned to to make its Screaming Headline case that the Fall of Juan has indeed "Spark[ed] Calls to Defund National Public Radio"?

"I think the U.S. Congress should investigate NPR and consider cutting off their money," said Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also a Fox News contributor

Gingrich called the firing "an act of total censorship."

"I think the whole idea that if you honestly say how you feel about Islam -- what he said was very balanced, people should read what he actually said -- the idea that that's the excuse for National Public Radio to censor Juan Williams is an outrage and every listener of NPR should be enraged that there's this kind of bias against an American," Gingrich said.

Of course.

To America's total surprise, Rupert Murdoch's House of Miracles and Wonders has used the termination of one of their few remaining very, very token "Liberals" from his part-time NPR job as an opening to let disgraced loser, serial-adulterer, unreconstructed racist, Nazi-monger, Fixed News contributor and future GOP presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich out of the penalty box and back into the sunlight.

And what could make this hideous fascist parody of "news" even more cartoonish than that?

Hey, I know! What about letting raving, wingnut imbecile Peter King in on the fun? You know, just for "balance"?

Republican Rep. Peter King went further, calling on Congress to nix any federal money NPR gets "because of its indefensible bias."

"NPR has disgraced itself by caving into CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and by firing Juan Williams for exercising his right of free speech," he said. "This is political correctness carried to its extreme form."

Yay!

And then...hehehe...then...hehehe....how about letting Fixed News' own in-house snake-handler take a swing at the pinata?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who hosts a show on Fox News, called on Congress to stop cutting checks to NPR and said he will no longer accept interview requests from NPR "as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship."

"NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left," he said.

There's your "outcry", Mr. & Mrs. America; the source of these public demands to defund NPR -- a rouge's gallery of the usual Fixed News tailor's dummies and stooges.

Rupert Murdoch's House of Miracles and Wonders has, in other words, taken an actual "story" and turned it into another big, heaving typically-Murdochian pile of rotting, bilge-engorged right-wing tit-meat for the Pig People to suckle on for a day or two. Which may be pretty good for a minor league franchise to pull together on short notice, but if you want to play in the NBA, kiddo, you'd better be able to bring the real heat.

Short notice or not, you'd better be able to and gratuitously wedge into the coverage something from the Wingnut Mad Lib All-Purpose Villain "A" List.

A drive-by shriek about ACORN, perhaps, or some bizarre non sequitur about Saul Alinsky, or maybe...

"This week, the radio network received $1.8 million from billionaire investor George Soros to hire journalists to cover legislatures in all 50 states."

Ahhh.

That's the shit.

In Other World-Shaking News

My local NPR station just came Dangerously Close to reporting in unequivocal language that:

1. Both sides are not equally wrong or biased.


2. For a disturbingly large number of Americans -- mostly Conservative Americans -- facts just don't fucking matter.


3. Reflexively saying "both side do it" every time a Conservative gets caught in the alley pistol-whipping the truth is, y'know, a bad thing.


4. That big-megaphone members of the "media elite" are by far the ones doing the most damage.
   

In other words, finally, gingerly touching on the Massive Media Fail that Liberals have been screaming about for years.

Man, Da Mare says he's leaving and the whole world comes off its axis.

But then, what can you expect for an organization that is clearly in the pocket of the Kenyan Usurper and his Chicago union goons?