Friday, July 23, 2010

Do You Have Something In Common With The JournoListers?

Hey, you just might. I admit, I was surprised to see that I agreed with at least one opinion of theirs. But I did. Turns out, the JournoListers hate Keith Olbermann, too! I know, right??

Now, I have said before I used to love the guy, DVR'ed him every night. But, once he started with the raging misogyny against Hillary Clinton, even defending David Schuster for calling Chelsea a whore and Hillary a pimp, I knew I could not stomach him anymore. But then again, I wasn't an Obama sycophant like the vast majority of the JournoListers are, and Olbermann is. So imagine my surprise when I read that was one of the reasons they hate him, too:
[snip] At issue was a segment Olbermann had run about Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who stirred debate in 2009 when she defended traditional marriage.

Following the segment, the subject on Journolist was “I hate Keith Olbermann again,” and the members of the list let it rip.

The Nation’s Katha Pollitt began the group’s rant. “He and Michael Musto did this whole long riff about beauty contestant Carrie ‘opposite marriage’ Prejean’s breast implants, stupidity, breast implants, tacky clothes, earrings, breast implants. They went on and on about how she was ‘part plastic’ and pathetic. You’d think they were celibate vegans who spent their lives zen meditating. It was just a whole TV humiliation of her, and it made me feel sorry for her, which wasn’t easy,” Pollitt said.

Michael O’Hare, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the segment was “about as funny as a rubber crutch. Odd when a reasonable person’s internal alarm doesn’t go off in a situation like that …’I’m going to ridicule a girl who’s obviously at her personal limits just trying to look conventionally pretty on national TV? What does that make me’?”

O’Hare even suggested friends stage an intervention for Olbermann. “If anyone on the list is a friend of Olbermann, friendship demands that you give him a head-up about this lapse,” he said.

Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and CNN contributor, said Olbermann’s root problem is his misogyny. “I can’t take him anytime. I think to write off his mysogyny (sic) as limited to Musto is just not accurate. That very much defined much of how he talked about Clinton as well as others.”

Zelizer was referring to a series of instances during the primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when critics from both sides of the aisle criticized Olbermann for allegedly sexist treatment towards Hillary. Olbermann was forced to apologize. [snip]

Click here to read the rest.

Incredible, isn't it? A number of these folks really get it about Olbermann, and his blatant misogyny. No one was more surprised than I was, especially given the level of misogyny leveled at Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin by many on the left.

But still, Olbermann had some supporters, like David Roberts, who appreciated his getting out the liberal news to the masses, so there is that. But that is not so surprising.

And while I am on the whole JournoList thing again, Tucker Carlson, the Editor in Chief of Daily Caller has written a follow-up letter to address the expose of Journolist. He writes about the two arguments currently being used to justify what these journalists did, and some claims that they are making. Specifically, he wrote:
[snip]The response hasn’t been all that furious, actually, probably because there isn’t much for the exposed members of Journolist to say. We caught them. They’re ashamed. The wise ones are waiting for the tempest to pass.

There have, however, been two lines of argument that we probably ought to respond to, if only because they may harden into received wisdom if we don’t. The first is that our pieces have proved only that liberal journalists have liberal views, and that’s hardly news.

To be clear: We’re not contesting the right of anyone, journalist or not, to have political opinions. (I, for one, have made a pretty good living expressing mine.) What we object to is partisanship, which is by its nature dishonest, a species of intellectual corruption. Again and again, we discovered members of Journolist working to coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama. That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organizations they work for should stop pretending, too.

The second line of attack we’ve encountered since we began the series is familiar to anyone who has ever published a piece whose subject didn’t like the finished product: “You quoted me out of context!”

The short answer is, no we didn’t. I edited the first four stories myself, and I can say that our reporter Jonathan Strong is as meticulous and fair as anyone I have worked with. [snip]

Click here to read the rest of the letter by Carlson.

I recommend reading the entire series at Daily Caller. It is certainly informative, though the piece about Keith Olbermann cannot help but make me smile. He SO deserves to receive this disdain by some of the very elite of whom he seems to count himself. Teehee! It couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow. To quote Jeremiah Wright, "the chickens have come home to roost!"

And how.

Friends, I will be out of town from 7/24 - 31. Have a good week!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks like Olbermann has pissed off plenty of people on both sides of the aisle. I know he had a big fight with the DKos group. Guys like KO and Obama always start out with a big explosion but end up fizzling like a wet fire cracker in a hurry.

Have a great weekend, kiddo! I had so many plans to get some big projects done outside but it's so hot and humid that I'm going to push them off until next week. I'll just hang out at the pool with my granddaughter. My husband even went swimming with us today and he rarely does that.

Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy said...

PERFECT analogy, ME! That says it all. It is amazing how tired people have become of him - myself included. I wonder when they will grow weary of Rachel...

Thanks, ME! I am looking forward to seeing old friends, and my great aunt, the last of my grandmother's siblings (I lost my grandmother a while back). She's 93 and spry, but she isn't going to live forever, you know?

Have fun with your granddaughter, too!

Hey, do you think the chlorine in the pool might rinse away some of the Kool Aide haze from your husband? Just a thought! (And hope you don't mind me joking abt him!) :-)