I’m stunned – couldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain? I realize his advisors probably didn’t want a “mature” woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age. But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Sept. 2, 2008

Am I missing something here, Brad, or is Sarah "Bridge to Nowhere" Palin actually suggesting that media criticism of a racist, right-wing rant amounts to a violation of the racist, right-winger's First Amendment rights?

Bizarre!

The most, ummm, fascinating (?) part of this "story" is that when Sarah Palin heard Laura Schlessinger using the word NIGGER, she came running, not walking, to Laura's side.

Sarah tripped over herself to assure that the person slurring the blacks got a fair shake at it. She wanted to see to it that the rich white lady wasn't left standing alone under her white sheet. I don't know what to say.

But doesn't this little event perfectly sum up the current state of the Republican Party? Aren't all Republican "politicians" looking capitalize on the Laura Schlessingers of the world? Don't all Republican "politicians" end up peddling their special brand of hate to constituents in exchange for votes?

I guess there's really only one conclusion to be reached here: When Sarah Palin saw the word NIGGER, she saw an opportunity to lock up some more Republican votes.

Is there another way to look at this?

Hockey mom may be getting dangerously close to having her own N-word moment. Soon she'll be joining the phony doctor scavaging the dumpsters of the media outlets looking for crumbs.

One can only hope.

The editorial, Dr. Laura in Denial in today's Los Angeles Times was spot on:

"It's frightening that a former governor and candidate for the vice presidency thinks that public dissent is either un-American or unconstitutional.

Schlessinger isn't quitting because she can't say what's on her mind; she just couldn't take the heat after she did it."

Schlessinger forgot that she was on commercial broadcast radio, on which certain standards apply. That includes reference to certain body parts and functions, and some offensive words such as the one she used rather avidly.
Cable? Not as much of a problem but still in poor taste enough to garner a smackdown.
How would she react to mention of her Italian heritage with derogatory words such as dago, guinea and wop?

"We usually don't like to take the wingnut bait, preferring instead to focus on issues that actually matter..."

Really? I love this blog, but I feel we're doing a LOT of wing-nut rubber worm chomping, lately. And it's not just Brad Blog. *All* my news is 24/7 Teatards, now. No matter that I spent years supporting, promoting bloggers and journalists I know can trust, they're all writing non-stop about whatever Sarah Palin tweets.

Or whatever lie Fox is peddling. Fox reports a lie, a few people believe it, the rest of the media pick it up and amplify the message non-stop, more people believe it, then progressive blogs run with it, then we all waste our time fighting with each other in the comment threads of the internet with paid trolls and brainwashed ass clowns.

Discouraging, dangerous, and counterproductive.
Bad use of our collective skill set. Not only does this deny us the chance to advance the ball for our own yardage, not only are we constantly on defense running for the benefit of the uber-dumb, but we are helping to inflate the false narrative (not to mention the self-importance) of by continuing to churn it 'round the echo-chamber.

Too stupid too look the other way? Stupid is the only direction we're collectively facing, Brad.

@Jeannie

Well...I do think there is a reason during this election period to pound home the point that the GOPbaggers are a dangerous group of ideologues whose collective psychopathy is corrosive to the nation and its constitution. If we don't point this out over and over again we run the risk that they will endlessly repeat their falsehoods without an effective counter-narrative.

This particular wingnut frenzy about how the poor oppressed white people aren't "allowed" to drop the N-Bomb has resonated with a large part of the population. I guess there are still lots of us who have a desire to use this word or at least to police black people who do. It is an opportunity for sane people to remind the rest that there are particular historical reasons why the use of this word by white people is especially harmful and warrants criticism--I don't think that's a waste of time considering how many people seem to have forgotten this.

Damn JDean, again with the spot-on-edness.

It just blows my wig how sites like Alternet, Rawstory, Opednews etc fall all over themselves to find something to say about Glenn Mother Fucking Beck. Its crazy. Or cleverly. orchestrated.

Good reason to stop visiting them.

Anyone know some good progressive sites that have never mentioned Palin or Beck

Morons like these are best ignored. If we all did they would go away.

Jeannie Dean @ 7:

You are not wrong. Though, in my defense 1) I have been on the road, with very little time for much deep, investigative blogging of late, 2) Once we started crossing into First Amendment territory (first with the fake Mosque nontroversy, then with Dr. Laura's victimhood, then with one of the front-runners for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination jumping in) it all became noteworthy enough to comment on at this blog and 3) See the first graf of Hankydub @ 8, as there is some merit there.

With all of that said, I hope you'll forgive me, at least until I get back home in a couple of weeks and --- most importantly --- after the next blog item I'll be posting

And in reply to CamusRebel @ 9, who said:

Morons like these are best ignored. If we all did they would go away.

With all due respect, no they wouldn't. They do need to be confronted, ridiculed and held out for all to see as the hypocrites and anti-American menaces to civil society that they are. They do *not* just go away when you ignore them (ask John Kerry, circa 2004, for just one example).

That said, we don't all need to confront and ridicule them at once, which is why we usually spend our time on things that others are not. Sometimes, however, we simply can't. This is one of those times.

The LA Times editorial about the Dr. Laura meltdown was excellent. If you missed it, I have posted the entire editorial on my website - www.mindsnackbooks.com - click "snacks" and click "quotations."

"So dumb it hurts"

LOVE that phrase, I'm usin' that like it's going out of style.

And yes, it is important to cover these nightmares of people- not every dumb thing they say, there's not enough bandwidth in the world, but know thy enemy, right?

Jeannie Dean @7. It isn't often we disagree, but ignoring the loudmouthed Right is a fool's errand.

Silence in the face of the fascist Tea Party movement cedes the microphone to the demagogues. That's what happened when when these Nazi brownshirt-like wingnuts shut down one of the oldest forms of democracy--the town hall meeting.

Adding to my response to Jeannie Dean:

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

@ Brad ~

You are ever-absolved, having provided me ample years of soaking in generous fact and thoughtful analysis on a range of threshhold topics no one else would dare touch with a stick. All for the modest fee of next-to-nothing.

Not to mention waking up every day and tenaciously fighting for my right to have my vote accurately counted as cast, or the months you have spent absent your best Gibson Guitar, Shirley; in hock just so you could continue speaking out on my behalf traveling from town to town as my Voter Advocate & Policy Wonk (totally pro bono).

Such small offenses, in context - I hope you know I know it.

And of course I wish you every silly vacation distraction that is afforded the rest of us - every Texas Big Steak House, every deep fried thing that makes you sick, every $10,000 dollar ugly belt buckle, every video of cats farting and hiccupping at the same time, and all the Palin / Schlessinger Shrapnel that makes your heart explode with disgust n'delight like it’s ‘Blowjobs-for-Bats Day’ at the local ballpark.
You’ve more than earned it.

(Not at all sure what I did to deserve…? )

But I thank you for your kind acknowledgment. You DO tend to be hyper-aware, even paternally overly protective of the news diet you feed your readers. It's one of the reasons Brad Blog is my True North – it’s inherently nutrient rich.

While you have plenty of furnished wiggle room to gob smack us with the grotty lot of 'em, as you noted above, it’s precisely when the rubber worm story du-jour becomes the only story there is, that we need The Brad Blog (et al) the most.

But you know how well I know how profoundly you already know that.

All that said:
RE: Ernest's and Hankydub's (and Brad's) fine points - I do think this if this is microcosm of the larger trend, what is happening has broader implications and unintended repercussions we don't fully understand, yet...

@ Ernest / Hankydub (and Brad) –

Some good points, and there’s plenty there to respond to - but honestly I feel these are the same points we’ve been debating in circles all year long in response to this information war we’re losing. The big three seem to be “we can’t just ignore them (silence in the face of)”, “their lies can’t go unchecked / unresponded to” and “people have to be reminded what we’re up against” so let’s start there see if we can’t storm some new castles.

I do think this is an important discussion to have, and I very much welcome all thoughts on the matter, no matter how much we may respectfully disagree.

My broader point, which I feel is diminished and too conveniently shelved with the common “but we can’t ignore them” deflection, is one of logistics (as Brad touched on, above). These rubber-worm, right-wing baited, crazy-as-a-hay-seed stories are everywhere on the internets right now. We couldn’t “ignore” them if we tried. Have you read the HUFFPO, lately? May as well be a Murdoch Property, for all the Murdoch piss I’m forced to siphon-suck off over there. And God only knows what percentage I’m ingesting daily and what it’s doing to my internal organs.

Do you really think Murdoch needs our help with online circulation?...No? Then we should stop giving it to him for free! We do it all the time and we don’t even seem to notice. Why? In part because his media empire is so huge we don’t even recognize which of his insidious stories have taken root and been selected by FOX NEWS fo talking point upgrades, and how that bizarro corpo-cabal chain of command can dramatically affect us all: Breaking from Salon.com that the GZ Mosque stupidity was seeded in Murdoch’s NY POST. Go figure!

"How the Ground Zero Mosque Fear Mongering Began:
http://www.salon.com/new...ound_zero_mosque_origins

Camusrebel's well made point reinforced - it’s a total chore to get through one day without hearing or reading a quote from Glen Beck. Try it. You can’t do it. You’d have to shut down your computer / iPhone / TV all day long or move to North Korea (which might be easier). I double dare you to get through two days without seeing Sarah Palin splashed across your visage at some point. I’m betting you would have to silk-worm-wax your eyelids shut for 8-10 hours both days to manage it.

Daily she’s flaunted on my whatever ‘new media’ front page, headlining and strutting her stupid through my morning info-snacking routine, usually being slightly impugned for something that once would’ve gotten her expelled from high school but now thanks to the trend of flash mob reporting it will end up netting her millions for her growing campaign coiffers. Great. Is this what we want? Because this is the net result we are working hard for and should expect; the sum impact of our collective, invested behavior. Make no mistake, we are contributing to this in ways we don't yet get. (Next: You Betcha! Sarah Palin’s Tweets become a #1 NYTIMES Best-seller!)...

...Why, with so few progressive voices to spare, why are we using all the only ones we DO have to amplify & give juice to the vile messages of the increasingly stupid, even if it’s just to 'refudiate' them? While I completely concede that it must be done to a lesser degree for the record (and I do jump in when I can to assist as is my cyber-civic duty) what results have been produced with these efforts? Who does it influence and who does it serve? ... Is anyone being reminded of anything they don't already know? Has anyone ever been swayed by our efforts to point them to facts long enough to change their original, fact-free, emotionally driven, Fox-spun position? ...

Sadly, I have seen precious little evidence that anything we do or say matters to their forced narrative, especially in light of the overtime hours and supreme written communication skills of one David Lasagna and Ernest Canning. O! The many hours they have spent in good faith, trying to produce some.

I believe we’re dealing with something more akin to brainwashing, in which case logic can not be transferred. A point further driven home by (Raw Story’s?) recent confirmation of the DIGG PATRIOTS scam perpetrated on The Brad Blog. Seeing as how that’s (mostly) who we’re discussing here, the three above proposed responses play right into their hands. It is their stated goal to drive off the cliff with our national narrative, and we're letting them.

When we endlessly have to stop or slow down our own process / loop ourselves and stoop to clarify basic information and argue facts with intractable people - what ideas aren’t we advancing? Which items on our agenda are no longer possible from all the bread n’ circus-y, razzle-dazzle’-em, fun farm mayhem producing noise?

This is exactly how we are all now being redirected into discussing the President’s Religion 24 / 7. Is that *really* worth our precious time debating too, now, Hankydub? Because that is how this stuff is getting decided.

I wonder that no one notices this as a weird and wild misappropriation of our limited resources / money / airwaves / potentially taxed and privately tiered cyberspace? (Not to mention how it leads to problematic data tracking, giving them the perceptions of substantial numbers we all know they don’t have. A boone for their internet advertising $$, but even creepier to consider how *that* kind of war of perception could be used in their favor come November.

Finally, how does our lack of preparation / no strategy for this info war make us any different than our congressional counterparts who we bitterly complain are being dominated again and again by such mean spirited legislative play?...

To me it seems we're doing exactly the same thing in our blogosphere and expecting a different result.

Jeannie Dean, your "crazy-as-a-hay-seed stories" was classic! What an apt description of almost everything that emerges from the hard-right echo chamber.

The problem, as I see it, is not that we respond to the crazies in order to inject a modicum of sanity into the discourse but that the billionaire-funded propagandists of the hard-right have a much, much bigger soapbox.

But that is simply the reality of our status quo in which the corporate-owned media controls 95% of what the American people see, hear and read.

As I explained in my slam of Robert Gibbs' reference to a "professional left," what the "educated left" lacks in resources must be overcome by its willingness to speak truth to power. And challenging the endless stream of hard-right canards is a part of that task.

I think the late Howard Zinn said it best in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, a book I would encourage all Americans to read:

"Change in public consciousness starts with low-level discontent, at first vague, with no connection being made between the discontent and the policies of government. And then the dots begin to connect, indignation increases, and people begin to speak out, organize and act."

Zinn continued:

"On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth."

Jeanie Dean and Ernest @ 17& 18

Both excellent points...excellent...hell I'm glad to be cyberly acquainted with such outstanding thinkers and writers.

I love open exchange of ideas...good job.

Ernest writes:

"The problem...is not that we respond to the crazies in order to inject a modicum of sanity into the discourse..."

Assuming that what we're doing. Because I don't really see that we're just "responding to the crazies in order to inject a modicum of sanity into the discourse" - I see that we're giving them the whole pie and letting them determine our course.

"...the billionaire-funded propagandists of the hard-right have a much, much bigger soapbox...but that is simply the reality of our status quo in which the corporate-owned media controls 95% of what the American people see, hear and read.

Exactly. That's a given. Which is why when The Brad Blog posts Palin vs. Shlessinger articles we're ceding control of the 5% of the news they don't own. That's my point. We're contributing to the bad end game in small, steady, incremental, but very critical ways.

(Might help to distinguish this as a Macro vs Micro containment issue. Let's couch this thing in terms of the Macro, hoping we can baby-step it in the direction of what we can do as individuals / as Brad Blog community later.)

Speaking Truth to Power is one step, Ernie, and an important, preliminary one - but not the means to an end. Petitions and Protests don't advance our cause at all when the Power doesn't care and is not held to account no matter how much Truth chats it up. The People desperately need new methods of effective assembly.

Not to mention you can't speak Truth to Power, which is megaphoning UP, while you're too busy teaching ABC's and 123's to Trolling Teatards like we're on Republican Romper Room, which is brain-dead megaphoning DOWN. This is what I mean when I say we are wasting gobs of manpower and energy. Their intended goal is to distract us,
and we're letting them do it; they're turkey-bombing us while we go round and round giving them the benefit of the doubt and "educating" them. That's not injecting a modicum of sanity into the discourse, Ernie, that's letting them win.

It should be stated for the record that we, the Rationals - are STILL THE MAJORITY. So can someone please explain to me why we are ceding the debate to Minority of Stupids when we don't have to?...Because they didn't.

They marginalized millions of us quite nicely for eight years. Imagine what would the world look like now if George Bush (and all his trolling Breitbartian assbags) have payed even the slightest attention to the massive throngs and hoards protesting of any of their cracked policies. They were TOTALLY "silent in the face of", Ernest...and it worked! Did they feel they needed to "set the record straight" and condemn the peace marches by listing all their reasons for invading? No. Were there round table discussions that included our voice in any way? No. Were the two wars open to debate?...No, we were roundly IGNORED. A MAJORITY of us, and it was brilliantly effective.

Can you imagine if the party roles were reversed, even for a second? If Amy Goodman had had the power to fire Donald Rumsfeld within the first six months of his tenure in the Bush administration, because Bush's people were so afraid of her report?...Utterly unthinkable.
And so sad that it is.

I love your Zinn quote, Ernest, but I'm not talking about slow rolling social change. I'm talking strategy and logistics in the face of an aggressive information war, which I don't feel anyone here is even noticing, let alone couching in the proper terms and taking seriously.

I'm talking about coming up with pro-active ways to avoid being sucked into (and at the very least be MINDFUL of) this pattern we're trapped in of non-discriminantly promoting these high-octane, low-energy, high-fructose, ripe for info-binging, bad brain food propaganda pushes that are sweeping over all of us and blowing us (even more)wildly off course.

Jeannie Dean @ 20:

I'm short on time at the moment, and your comments speak largely for themselves, but just a quick response to this:

I'm talking about coming up with pro-active ways to avoid being sucked into (and at the very least be MINDFUL of) this pattern we're trapped in of non-discriminantly promoting these high-octane, low-energy, high-fructose, ripe for info-binging, bad brain food propaganda pushes that are sweeping over all of us and blowing us (even more)wildly off course.

The things we bother to respond to here are not done "non-discriminantly". As you've hopefully noticed, we don't fall for every wingnut honey-trap that has been set. In the case of Palin/Schlessinger, there was actually something valuable that I was able to add (in this case, the two year old comments she made about the First Amendment way back when, which are important to the discussion today, and not being raised by many).

So while we don't fall for all the fake RW scandals du jour, when there is something we are able to add to them, we do. And we can do both that AND pay attention to the things that matter on a larger scale (see last night's Pac-Man hack item, for example) at the same time.

We can't save world with EVERY blog item posted --- even if, I promise you, I try!

K.

Jeannie Dean: I think the point you are actually making is similar to the one I made in The 'Ground Zero Mosque' and the Hypnotic Power of Republican Race-Baiting to the effect that the time spent responding to fake RW scandals is time diverted from substantive issues, such as the reality of billionaire-funded, reactionary economics.

To that extent, I concur.

But I think it is a question of editorial and journalistic judgment.

Take, for example, Brad's outstanding exposure not only of James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart and their phony pimp scam, but his extraordinary piercing of the utterly dishonest "coverage" of that fake RW scandal by the MSM.

I believe that Brad's posts on that particular issue did not in any way amplify the hard-right megaphone. To the contrary, it served to expose to the public the duplicity of both Breitbart and the editors of The New York Times. It laid the groundwork for Breitbart's eventual undoing when the Shirley Sherrod story broke.

The only problem I have with Brad's coverage of the phony pimp scam is that when Rachel Maddow belatedly addressed it, she did not give Brad the thanks that he deserved for breaking ground on the issue when perhaps no one, other than Eric Boehlert, was doing so.

I am so happy that the ugly (inside and out) crazy old gym teacher reaped what she had sowed. She could have gotten her argument across by saying “N word” and not using the word and by not saying "don't NAACP me" but like Michael Richards AKA “Cosmo Kramer”,she ends up the the trash heap of history, a history of her own making. I am so happy that the free market AKA sponsors started to pull their ads (I guess they were exercising their free speach) and she finally realized that she was just another “run of the mill gabby” and her days were numbered. She realized that she was not as smart as she thought she was, finally!

The problem with Palin is the same when she mistakenly referred to Ronald Reagan Eureka College, being in California and we all know its in Illinois, same thing, she does not fact check anything she is going to say. She is soooo Palin!

@ Brad & Ernest ~

Dearest fellows, you two could write "I like Cheetos" and nothing else on this blog every day for a year and still be considered American Treasures by virtue of your past and present standards of excellence.

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough in my paren @ #20, but I really was speaking in much more general terms - trying to speak to the larger, gloomy, Teatard obsessed progressive news spectrum and how it's unwittingly self-destructing by stupid-bating itself to death; auto-asphyxiation by rubber-necking.

I agree 100%, Ernest, that Brad's frame by frame analysis of James O'Keefe's video proving to the NY Times Editor that he was NOT dressed as a pimp (and his subsequent months long expose) was Pulitzer worthy; the loose thread pulled bit by bit that began the backslide from which Breitbart and O'Keefe would never recover. (And yes, I also find maddening that whenever Bradblog breaks a story that goes wide, Brad is rarely, if ever, credited.)

And you, Ernest Canning, you can write / talk circles around every other legal analyst I ever see...well, anywhere. If I could pick who I want translating my Teabagginese for me on CNN - it'd be you hands down, Ernest. You're so classy you might even be able to give those dinkheads an I.Q. bump by proxy.

I don't think we have a disagreement here, but we a difference in perspective of the scale of the problem (as I see it) and how it relates to the way we comport ourselves in the blogosphere. "Wherein lies our treasure, therein lies our heart"...forget who said it, but when we swarm a thing with our collective attention, it empowers the thing, not the swarm.

"But I think it is a question of editorial and journalistic judgment."

No doubt. But I'm suggesting that that judgment must now be measured by different, collective, new media, flash-mob journalism standards. We need an overview of the coverage in real time, so we can adjust our own news model and not all bum rush the same fire. (And we need less opinion in our news all 'round. Most of these aren't even "fires" in the first place, but raging, flaming, pack driven, false Fox alarms.)

You'd think that since we have a ukulele phone that I can play when I'm the toilet we'd also have that technology in place by now. But we don't. But until have that and jet packs we need to better track our own mouse clicks...
ask ourselves: what are we (allowing ourselves) to consume and then broadcast (to each other)?

Vote with your mouse. It may be the only vote you have that they're willing to count.

I don't want to flame the thread, but since it's developing in the comment thread of Brad's piece
'Anti-Muslim Mob at Ground Zero' and the incendiary reaction of our friend "Steve"...

(Don't worry, he won't read this. He doesn't have enough intellectual curiosity to scroll all the way down on a three day old article he doesn't read just to read the comment thread he has no interest in.)

I see you've both already responded at length to a ridiculous argument he's made that no one in their right mind could possibly believe based on the video evidence. You've both quite thoroughly and completely debunked his three(four?)bullshit posts overflowing with stupidity, clearly intended to throw off the course of the discussion. No one can deny you've ripped him a new one.

He may or may not come back at you, as an exercise in the bizarre motif / beta test, FWIW:

a) try to keep your responses to him as brief as you can - don't feed him. Remember, he will not be reading them, we will. He is not likely to be be swayed (nor will any readers who are a part of his "group think") and all you will do is continue to allow his hijacking of the discussion.

The rest of your normal brain functioning readers who can process information without assistance might like to express an idea or two as well, and shouldn't be held back in class just because Steve is eating the paste. Let him eat the paste and play with himself off in the corner, gluing his hands to his dick away from the rest of us while we're conducting class.

b) Don't fall for his emotive goads...ie "you liberals, this" and "you progressives, that". Not a weighty enough accusation (tho' misplaced) for you to dignify him with a response. Let your readers do it for you, and step back if that's all he's got.

c) Yes, rebuke him firmly when he disrupts us - yes, spank him for his lies, no, don't ignore him...but do consider time invested vs. your time and interest served, not his.

d) after you've cleanly put him down (and you always do - DON'T ENGAGE HIM again. Change the subject and let it stay changed.

Can't we just see what happens to a thread if we don't play by their rules...? I'm betting it would be a completely different discussion.

Ugh. I just checked in over there and he's still at it. And so are you guys.

What I find interesting is that DR. Laura quit.

I just read the transcript.

1.She did not call anyone a nigger!

2. She was illustrating a valid point about black people calling each other nigger.

3. Something else was up with w/ Dr. Laura and this story was her excuse to quit.

4. I see nothing racist about what Dr. Laura was saying.

5. The truth hurts sometimes...this Jade woman is over sensitive. As it sounds like people thought of her as good way of educating themselves about the black perspective and she was probably the only one they have ever been close enough to to get answers from.

6. If she was so offended why didn't SHE say this is offensive instead of making her husband into the bad guy????????

Cheryl -

If you claim to have read the transcript, yet still "see nothing racist about what Dr. Laura was saying" well, then (to borrow from Jeff Foxworthy) you might be a racist!

I don't have time to list the things she said which were far more offensive than her use of the n-word 11 times, so I'll let last night's Daily Show segment do it for me. I hope it helps you. Seriously.