Over the Line, Smokey!
You have to be kidding me:
Tommy Christopher reports that Dale Robertson, a self-described tea party activist who was basically drummed out of the movement over holding a quasi-racist sign, has signed up with the Washington Times as a contributor to its tea party blog. Christopher’s quick rundown explains just how strange this is:Robertson, you may recall, was thrust back into the limelight in March, when he was quoted by the paper as never having seen any racial slurs at tea parties, despite having been photographed holding a sign that featured the N-word. He told us the photo was a fake, which our expert then disputed, before a sea of journalists came forward to point out that Robertson had already admitted to holding the sign.
I guess if I was to attempt a defense of the Moonie Times it would be that considering Fox has Glenn Beck, CNN just hired a guy who called Justice Souter a goat fucking child molester, numerous Republicans in the House are birthers, and apparently believing it is a-ok for business to racially discriminate and that the ADA should be rolled back lets you run for the Senate, if you’re a wingnut it is hard to figure out just why this might be over the line.
Pretty clearly our media and political betters have decided to let their freak flag fly, so when you start talking about signs with the n-bomb, we’ve reached a period of nuance and personal preference.
May 21, 2010 1:42 pm
Posted in: Clown Shoes, Our Failed Media Experiment, Teabagger Stupidity
69 Comments
69 Responses
beltane - May 21, 2010 | 1:47 pm · Link
Didn’t the Washington Times go out of business recently? Is this all a bad dream?
freelancer - May 21, 2010 | 1:48 pm · Link
The Onion has noticed this trend too.
This isn’t a guy who built the railroads here.
comrade scott's agenda of rage - May 21, 2010 | 1:49 pm · Link
No but the Moonies put it up for sale. It’s been bleeding red ink since it’s inception and apparently the Great Recession has hurt Moonie finances.
That’s okay, the Examiner is there to carry on the right wing print standard in DC. Not sure where its money comes from—it’s gotta be a money pit as well.
And CNN wonders why it’s ratings have gone in the dumper.
aimai - May 21, 2010 | 1:50 pm · Link
Can I just say that I’m still floored by the hiring of the “goat fucking child molester” guy on a major network. I mean, I can remember when people who were going to go out in public at all needed to at least wipe the spittle from their lips and use polite language. I guess I’m getting old.
aimai
cyntax - May 21, 2010 | 1:52 pm · Link
I’m still gobsmacked that even with people like Glenn Beck, Erick Erickson, and this ya-hoo, we still have a “liberal media.”
When are we gonna get some damn trotskyites on air for balance?
freelancer - May 21, 2010 | 1:53 pm · Link
@aimai:
Well considering the bruising you gave to Jokeline, if you ever run into EofE, you should sell tickets.
dmsilev - May 21, 2010 | 1:54 pm · Link
@aimai: He claimed that he had “really matured a lot” since that comment, or some similar drivel. And if anyone believes that, I’ve got a great deal on a vintage suspension bridge in New York City; excellent condition and a bargain price.
dms
Guster - May 21, 2010 | 1:54 pm · Link
So is ‘nigger’ now ‘quasi-racist,’ or am I missing something?
WereBear - May 21, 2010 | 1:54 pm · Link
I guess if you were running a goat bestiality blog, you’d want someone with experience.
Can anyone deny he’s a real tea party kinda guy?
Tom Hilton - May 21, 2010 | 1:55 pm · Link
Ummm…Wes Pruden? Robert Stacy McCain? This guy is far from the first white supremacist to work for the Moonie Times.
kommrade reproductive vigor - May 21, 2010 | 1:56 pm · Link
Egads. Someone check on the SadlyNaughtys. They may need CPR to survive the massive snark attack.
cyntax - May 21, 2010 | 1:57 pm · Link
@freelancer:
I dunno, it’d be over before I could open my beer, so it’d have to be on a loop.
Chuck - May 21, 2010 | 1:57 pm · Link
Apparently it only rises to “quasi-racist” if you can’t manage to spell “Nigger” correctly.
Why does the Moonie Times still enjoy a seat in the Washington pool? Seriously, does Stormfront have a blogger in there?
jonas - May 21, 2010 | 1:59 pm · Link
@cyntax: This is absolutely right. The only conceivable “balance” to this stuff would be for the New York Times or CNN to reserve a major column or program for an anarcho-syndicalist antiglobalism activist who would argue with his Trotskyite guest over whether capitalists should be merely summarily shot, or forced into reeducation camps. And other MSM outlets would have to comment on this discussion as “some other interesting opinions out there today…”
matoko_chan - May 21, 2010 | 2:00 pm · Link
we can resist.
look, i get to use my UD definition of rasmussen statistics!
Pollster finds an example of rasmussen statistics in Arkansas.
i think the poll/statistics guild can push back more effectively against rasmussen statistics than the journalist/media guild can push back against foxnews. the media needs reader/viewers worse.
Bob L - May 21, 2010 | 2:01 pm · Link
@dmsilev: He had a “Youthful indiscretion (from six months ago” LOL
Kryptik - May 21, 2010 | 2:02 pm · Link
But remember folks, calling someone a Teabagger shows you just how prejudiced you are and is grounds for considering you totally unserious.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle - May 21, 2010 | 2:02 pm · Link
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I believe the Examiner that you speak of is owned by Philip Anschutz. And yeah, the guy is a right-winger.
Kryptik - May 21, 2010 | 2:04 pm · Link
@jonas:
Are you kidding? The only way to balance something like this would be to hire Bill Kristol again, don’tcha know. Don’t you remember that the media is still a liberal wasteland of prejudice against the poor conservatives wanting to stop the Leftist Destruction of Great AMerica?!
cyntax - May 21, 2010 | 2:04 pm · Link
@jonas:
Ah, now that would be funny… and just.
And that might just make me believe in a higher power.
Uli Kunkel - May 21, 2010 | 2:05 pm · Link
@freelancer: the Chinaman is not the issue.
Also really liked the Onion’s Man Attempts To Assassinate Obama, ‘But Not Because He’s Black Or Anything’.
El Cid - May 21, 2010 | 2:05 pm · Link
@jonas:
I would subscribe to that.
sukabi - May 21, 2010 | 2:05 pm · Link
told you John that we’d already stood up and proudly embraced Idiocracy.
jl - May 21, 2010 | 2:08 pm · Link
From the link:
“So he’s known for two things—holding a sign with a racial slur, then lying about it.”
Will David Broder cry? Will Morning Joe Bully call them out?
I think liberals, progressives and the left should remain consistent in the face of this madness. We should NOT ask for standard media ‘balance’ here.
I do not want the lefty counterparts of Glenn Beck, Erick Whatever, or the guy known for two things (holding signs with racial slurs and then lying about it) on the teevee.
Just some sane informed and incisive sane people who are not afraid of doing their homework and calling out BS.
The Village will call such sane people the loony left, but who cares? I think the average voter will see the difference.
It also amazes me how predictable the insane reactionaries have become. They are like those bugs who act like they reason through problems, but if you alter their environment so that their routines makes no sense, they conintue to do the same thing over and over again.
So, Ron Paul’s bizarre nonsense and sleazy half retreat for the sake of Freedom started with bashing the basic necessity of very basic racial integration in society is all the loony left’s fault. Interesting that race and ethnicity also conveniently happen to be the current dog whistle wedge issues.
And Democrats are the real opponents of civil rights, not the current GOP.
Hoocoodanode that would be the response?
I hope the teabaggers and the GOP keep this up all the way through election day. That may save us.
aimai - May 21, 2010 | 2:08 pm · Link
@El Cid:
me too! I want to let a thousand flowers bloom.
aimai
Warren Terra - May 21, 2010 | 2:08 pm · Link
What Tom Hilton said, except that I’d thought the Moonie Times was meant to have tried to leave their history of overt glaring racism behind when they fired Wes Pruden and Robert Stacy McCain.
licensed to kill time - May 21, 2010 | 2:08 pm · Link
Cry, the beloved country
our news is Onion
without the laughs
"Fair and Balanced" Dave - May 21, 2010 | 2:09 pm · Link
OK, exactly how batshit insane does a wingnut have to be before the so-called “mainstream” media stops taking him/her seriously?
beltane - May 21, 2010 | 2:10 pm · Link
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: I wonder if Philip Anschutz is friends with Brad Goehring, the congressional candidate in California who wants to exterminate liberals http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....uples-down
jl - May 21, 2010 | 2:13 pm · Link
I am bending my mind trying to think what freak the media would have to trot out for appropriate balance, for reals.
A trisexual anarcho-fascist-crypto monarchist who bites the heads off rats live on teevee to advocate for veganism? That will be appropriate balance for Beck, I guess.
Ed Drone - May 21, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
@licensed to kill time:
Almost a perfect haiku, you know. I tried to improve it, syllable-wise:
Cry, the beloved country
Our news The Onion
Only without the laughs
Admittedly, it doesn’t have the traditional mention of nature or seasons, but it has the syllable count.
But whatever the form, it’s too damned accurate. Gives me shivers and nearly tears, it does.
Ed
slag - May 21, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
Wait a second. There are lines? I did not know that. I just thought that “accidents happen” and nobody anywhere had to take responsibility for anything at all ever. Where’d these lines come from all of a sudden? And why do they hate our freedom?
WereBear - May 21, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
I’m still trying to figure out when a wingnut becomes tooooooooooo wingnutty… when it hasn’t happened yet.
me - May 21, 2010 | 2:16 pm · Link
@Uli Kunkel: Also, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.
Anyway, on the bright side, with the Washington Times funding issues he won’t have a job for long.
bemused - May 21, 2010 | 2:16 pm · Link
I’d completely forgoten reading about this Dale Robertson guy, too many nutjobs out there, that my first thought was, oh no, not another old wingnut Hollywood actor gone teabagger. Smacking head.
ksmiami - May 21, 2010 | 2:18 pm · Link
I think the operative term here is INSANE CLOWN POSSE. The right has gone off the rails. I feel a MORAL imperative to vote, donate and do what I can to prevent these jerks from further destroying our country. total jerk-off crazies undeserving of office.
also, too, I hate these people and their wackaloon ignorant enablers.
bemused - May 21, 2010 | 2:20 pm · Link
The Moonie Times is going to have to hire a full time spell checker/editor for Robertson’s blogs.
jl - May 21, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link
About time some of the commenters who are expert on that subfield chime in on the theoretical physics of peak wingnut.
Mark S. - May 21, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link
I guess they pulled it and then put it back up with a disclaimer. What’s entertaining is that even right wingers hate this guy.
Well, it’s sort of entertaining.
licensed to kill time - May 21, 2010 | 2:24 pm · Link
@Ed Drone: :-) Onion is vaguely nature-y…ok, that’s a stretch.
Captain Goto - May 21, 2010 | 2:27 pm · Link
@licensed to kill time:
Couldn’t you come up with three more syllables?
SIA - May 21, 2010 | 2:27 pm · Link
Has anyone else posted this? Since teabaggers are part of the post subject: Rand Paul is kind of whiney.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/2010.....d=10705651
Plus Rachel Maddow is mean. And George S. is parroting Democrat [sic] points. Waaahhh!
SIA - May 21, 2010 | 2:33 pm · Link
@aimai: I stopped watching CNN when they hired him, and just sent them a 2nd email explaining that his presence as well as the fake journalists John King & Candy Crowley were the reasons I no longer view CNN. I wish they would try a wild experiment: Fire all the top heavy pundits, become the actual “news” cable outlet, with real reporting, fact-checking, serious interviews, and panels consisting of non-celebrities who don’t make my skin crawl.
Ed Drone - May 21, 2010 | 2:34 pm · Link
@WereBear:
Q. How long does it take to tune a banjo?
A. No one knows—it’s never been done.
Q. How crazy can the Republicans get?
A. No one knows—no one has reached the limit so far.
.
Ed
licensed to kill time - May 21, 2010 | 2:35 pm · Link
@Captain Goto:
Cry, the beloved country
our news the Onion
fall of tears but no laughter
jrg - May 21, 2010 | 2:38 pm · Link
Hahahahah. Hah Haaaaaah! That’s precious.
I want a fucking pony, but ponies don’t make for good TV ratings, do they? We all know where the real money is… creating controversy!
Besides, people who do their homework are liberals. If 50% of your program is not devoted to bullshit, you’re left-leaning by definition.
Ed Drone - May 21, 2010 | 2:39 pm · Link
@licensed to kill time:
Maybe it’s a stretch, but the dual meaning of ‘onion’ is a subtle bow to tradition while remaining tres moderne, nes pas?
Ed
(and don’t proof-read my French—I’m nearly mono-lingual, and the smattering of ‘furrin’ languages I know don’t include that one.)
jl - May 21, 2010 | 2:41 pm · Link
@jrg: Good point. Some one tell me when the anarcho-fascist-crypto monarchist who bites the heads off rats live on teevee to advocate for veganism is on Morning Joe.
Erik Vanderhoff - May 21, 2010 | 2:44 pm · Link
You have ads for Prop 16. I fucking hate you. For now.
Malaclypse - May 21, 2010 | 2:46 pm · Link
OK, exactly how batshit insane does a wingnut have to be before the so-called “mainstream” media stops taking him/her seriously?
At least three Buchanan Units.
kommrade reproductive vigor - May 21, 2010 | 2:47 pm · Link
And they’d both say everything is just like Hitler.
Tsulagi - May 21, 2010 | 2:54 pm · Link
Okay that was funny. USA! USA!
I dunno, in Darwin’s theory is there some point where shit starts devolving? Maybe that was the millennium bug.
Sator Arepo - May 21, 2010 | 3:07 pm · Link
1) I don’t know why anyone—at all—bothers to take the Moonie Times even remotely seriously.
2) In the future, please hyphenate “goat-fucking” where needed.
I don’t care much, really, it’s just a hilarious juxtaposition, as:
Proper punctuation and usage + profanity = WIN
[insert Balloon Juice meme here]
MikeJ - May 21, 2010 | 3:09 pm · Link
@Tsulagi<
Nope. Organisms become more fit for the environment they are in. The fact that these things are considered acceptable is an indictment of the political and media environment in which they take place.
Prof. K&G - May 21, 2010 | 3:09 pm · Link
Fucking journalism. How does it work?
Derek - May 21, 2010 | 3:25 pm · Link
@Prof. K&G:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!
dj spellchecka - May 21, 2010 | 3:26 pm · Link
i get the daily moonie email for giggles and recently, they’ve started printing op-eds from ted nugent. [yes, that ted nugent]... if that isn’t rail-jumping crazy enough for y’all, his epistles make the “most read” list every time….
maus - May 21, 2010 | 3:29 pm · Link
@Tsulagi:
Even considering the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism, the existence of technological innovations like Satellite TV, Twitter and Facebook do not make for a “more advanced” society.
While the laws have gotten better to protect us, we’ve gotten lazy and the media wants to push everyone in a “post-racial” hole where they don’t have to report on the unpopular human interest stories that go over poorly with their advertisers and rednecks.
“more advanced” suggests that things change with each generation. They don’t, we just start over and do the same dumb fucking mistakes over and over again. That’s what makes the Pauls’ shrill statements about removing all legal protections of person so terrifying, that Libertopian “people will be innately good, and when they’re not, that’s the cost of a ‘free’ society” speech that’s obviously from a position of entitlement.
ET - May 21, 2010 | 3:30 pm · Link
Considering what has gone on with the Washington Times I wonder how long for the world it is.
Derek - May 21, 2010 | 3:31 pm · Link
Argh, eat my balls, Word Press!
@Mark S.:
That line is fucking hilarious. I am going to make a complete sentence from that using some other part from Robertson’s bio and send it to Lyttle Lytton, for the “Found” contest.
(I tried to put a link to Lyttle Lytton, but WP didn’t like that. Anyway, google it if you’re interested. Few things have ever made me laugh harder.)
Cacti - May 21, 2010 | 3:40 pm · Link
Well, this is the Moonie Times we’re talking about.
It’s not like they’ve ever tried to hide their role as a right wing propaganda rag.
kommrade reproductive vigor - May 21, 2010 | 4:35 pm · Link
@Cacti: When it first slithered into D.C. it was a tabloid in broadsheet clothing. The White House Child Prostitution scandal was front page fodder when St. Ron was in office.
Made no difference in their sales.
Ash Can - May 21, 2010 | 5:07 pm · Link
Why wouldn’t the Moonie Times hire a(nother) racist? I should think that racism would be a feature rather than a bug for the people on its staff. I’d find it remarkable if the MT didn’t hire racists.
matoko_chan - May 21, 2010 | 5:14 pm · Link
oh please please please let my Urban Dictionary definition post soon!
I want to invite Dave Weigel to contribute.
Laff this off, Scott, you tool.
what i submitted—
asiangrrlMN - May 21, 2010 | 6:26 pm · Link
Good lord. I really think I am going to out-crazy Michelle Malkin and cash in on the rightwing gravy train. Then, in five years, give all the money to Amnesty International and other organizations such as that. I can do token for five years, right? And I can give starbursts if needed.
By the way, my local town had a Tea Party and were proud to announce that OVER FIFTY PEOPLE showed up. You read that right. OVER FIFTY PEOPLE. Snicker.
Origuy - May 21, 2010 | 7:05 pm · Link
I could get fifty people together right now by sending out an email that there’s cake in the break room. On Friday afternoon at four. If I had cake.
mclaren - May 21, 2010 | 7:20 pm · Link
Instead of a Gay Pride parade, the media can hold a yearly Kook Pride parade.
I’m just surprised that CNN or Fox News or the Washington Post haven’t yet hired David Ickes (“The Grey Reptoids are Mutants From Atlantis Who Bred With Lizards”) as a political commentator.
I’d really love to see a round table discussion on CNN or Fox News between David Ickes, who says that grey reptoids from Atlantis abduct and eat our children and William D. Brehm, who says that UFOs are full of demons sent by Satan to deceive us, and that Byerly guy who says the earth is hollow and full of Nazis.
The Wall Street Journal could write an opinion piece about that debate describing it as a “very serious debate between our most important political thinkers.”
Wile E. Quixote - May 21, 2010 | 7:23 pm · Link
Oh please, oh please, can we add that to the Lexicon?
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