Dave Weigel’s new blog at the ‘Kaplan Daily’ is a giant win for the sane people among us. Now he’s got a larger and presumably more “mainstream” (i.e., low information) audience for his keen sense of the ridiculous:
CNN’s decision to embed with the Tea Party Express as it traveled toward D.C. — Fox News did the same thing last year, in the run-up to the Sept. 12 taxpayer march on Washington — befuddled the right and left alike. Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher speculated that the network was out for “nuggets of gold,” video and photos of tea partyers waving racist signs.
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That’s not how CNN’s Shannon Travis describes his embed experience.
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“[H]ere’s what you don’t often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper. … It is important to show the colorful anger Americans might have against elected leaders and Washington. But people should also see the orange-vested Tea Party hospitality handlers who welcome you with colorful smiles. There were a few signs that could be seen as offensive to African-Americans. But by and large, no one I spoke with or I heard from on stage said anything that was approaching racist.
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Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.
Of course, Weigel’s got plenty of important sercon posts about conservatives in general and Republicans in particular. But it’s his Menckenian eye for the ridiculous that I really appreciated when he was writing for The Washington Independent, and his new post will give access to more sources as well as larger targets.
David in NY
“sercon”
Is this some new in-talk I’ve missed?
JeremyH
“Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.”
Heh, that’s awesome. But I fear it was too subtle a dig for the readers of that august journal to understand.
growingdaisies
The ridiculous part is already going over some heads. Check out the comments, where someone suggests he call his weekly round-up, “GOP Talking Points.”
*Head smack*
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Don’t know, but I don’t think you can “bop” to hip-hop/ You can bop a hip hop rapper, but not bop to one. If seniors were actually bopping hip hop rappers, they are so fucked.
Allan
Shannon Travis never lets the fact that teabaggers are lying dissuade him from dutifully stenographing their every claim.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
OT
Liberal fascists are out of control with the secret double agent war on eating all the right wing apple pie.
JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL)
WELL WHATS SO WRONG ABOTU BOPPING TO A HIP-HOP RAPER? I THAUGHT YOU LIB’S WEAR SUPPOSED TO BE CELABRATING DEVERSITY???
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
So, teabaggers aren’t racist to a black woman with a camera and a microphone.
In a way, I’m kind of surprised they were even able to show that much restraint, given their hatred of all media except Fox.
Still, it does fit with their overall grievance: the Tea Partiers are far more interested in attacking the weak and the poor rather than the powerful and well-off. What are the words for that? Oh yeah, irresponsible and bullies.
.
Anne Laurie
@David in NY:
Oops. A portmanteau for “Serious & Constructive”, used by sf fans, almost always ironically. Flashback to the wild days of my youth… but maybe it would be useful to DFHs as well?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Waaah! You didn’t say there was absolutely positively not the tiniest bit of racism you racist!
Linda Featheringill
@David in NY:
sercon = “Serious and Constructive” especially in science fiction criticism
arguingwithsignposts
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
I note that he doesn’t mention any signs or speechifying that might be offensive to, say, a Hispanic-American, which might also be considered racist.
cleek
pretty subtle.
maybe too subtle.
Jay in Oregon
I like to keep it in the refrigerator.
Keeps the powder dry, and the action quicker.
Let me be your American Gladiator.
Find enclosed an adhesive N.R.A. sticker.
A letter t’ you from where I been holed up
in this bucolic, agrarian compound.
One step ahead
just ahead
of the government bloodhound.
The gas is off, it’s a national showdown.
But…
Sure wish that I could visit you,
my sweet betrothed.
In a couple a’ days
we’ll all be free,
or we’ll be dead.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
I’m fencing off this little piece of heaven.
Cross the line and you’re electrocuted.
Polishing up my AK47.
It’s a constitutional right, can’t be refuted.
Now they got us on TV,
and makin’ us look stupid.
Shot of me flippin’ my lid,
at that mutt reporter,
a classic case of race dilution
Houston,
What is the problem?
I’m fighting for you, and a blue-eyed Jesus.
America first,
the rest get the pieces, na na na na.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
Fighting for your honour,
like would any Afrikaner.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
Our numbers are strong, and it won’t be long
’til I can tell you, Trisha, that we won.
You’ll be ecstatic, just like that night
you told me up in the attic.
That was your wish again,
to be back in a purified Michigan
down on…! down on…!
…the farm?
Well, that’s my wish again,
to be back in Michigan.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
Well, that’s my wish again, to be back in Michigan
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
I hope y’like the double barrel,
I think it goes with your apparel.
Happy Birthday, Trisha,
Well, that’s my wish again, to be back in Michigan
I’m in the Michigan Militia.
I like to keep it in the refrigerator.
Michigan Militia by Moxy Früvous
Allan
a few
could be seen
by and large
approaching
almost everyone
No matter how you torture language with weasel words, Shannon, it was there. You saw it. Just fucking say so.
JGabriel
General Egali Tarian Stuck:
You absolutely can bop to rap. From ,a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diiL9bqvalo”>Rapper’s Delight, the first rap single to hit the top 40 (and by most accounts, the first rap single period):
Bopping is right there in rap’s DNA.
.
David in NY
@Anne Laurie:
@Linda Featheringill:
Thanks.
@cleek:
On the substance, I think I’m with cleek and others above — “maybe too subtle”.
David in NY
@Allan:
Oh, we are all textualists now. I like the construction (or deconstruction) of this one.
JGabriel
Fuck. Bad link.
That’ll teach me to try to add a video link with only 10 seconds left to edit.
Here’s the proper link: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diiL9bqvalo">Rappers Delight.
Now, tell me you can’t BOP to that.
.
Joel
@JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL): I knew you were familiar!
Allan
@David in NY: It’s not quite a haiku, but perhaps I should tweet it to Glenn Beck anyway.
Felonious Wench
@JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL): I truly hope you’re a spoof. Otherwise, jeez, man, lay off the caps and learn how to spell.
Absolutely nothing. But they made sure to mention it was a senior citizen, presumably white, bopping around to that crazy black hip hop music they’re supposed to hate. So obviously, those senior citizen white people ain’t racist if they’re listening to the evil black man’s music.
Diversity is a good thing, we celebrate it. But this falls under “doth protest too much.” Want to prove people aren’t racist? Get rid of the signs depicting President Obama as a tribal chieftain with a bone through his nose. Actions, asshole, not BS examples of cross-generational racial harmony.
Comrade Mary
@Joel: And if he were just a modern guy, he’d have had it in the ear before.
scav
maybe the point of all this Tire-swinging, maybe the hope is, at the very end, CNN will get an exclusive interview with some guy named Kurtz.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@JGabriel:
You are correct, it seems. Thanks for fact checking my joke.
Allan
@JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL):
Chevy: That’s “rapper,” Mrs. Litella. Not “raper.”
Normal Guy: Oh, well, that’s very different. (Beams) Never mind.
Nethead Jay
@David in NY: I know you’ve already gotten the explanation, but I can’t resist expanding on it and dropping one of my favorite links in the process: Sercon.
Midnight Marauder
@JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL):
From your Twitter page:
A) If you are a spoof, you must be fucking living that shit 24/7.
B) You might be the absolute worse person in the world when it comes to correctly using an apostrophe.
C) Please lay off your rampant abuse of the Jesus Key when playing around on the intertubes. Thanks.
Allan
This topic really whets my appetite for some Tim Wise.
Here’s a “digression” from a recent blog post of his, prompted because a teacher wrote him seeking a citation for a claim in one of his videos that a student refused to believe.
I would bold, italicize, and animate the font on that sentence if I could.
The fact that everyone is entitled to their opinion leads millions to believe that their opinions are actually just as valuable as anyone else’s, no matter the yawning chasm between their own expertise on a topic and that of someone else.
JGabriel
@JGabriel:
Goddammit, that link was working, but it’s broken again. FYWP.
Here’s the text link for anyone vaguely interested in watching a 1979 video of The Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diiL9bqvalo
.
DBrown
Could someone please show me a picture of teabaggers that clearly contain a whole bunch, a few, or even one “African-Americans proudly participating” with these nut suckers? All the pic’s I’ve seen are groups (rather small) of white nut suckers ( a rare animal that loves getting gov hand outs but hates all non-whites who get anything but jail time.)
maus
My tolerance seems to have been raised because of teabag crazies to the point where I can only subsist on Wonkette levels of snark.
AhabTRuler
Y’know, even if you fix the spelling, it still makes no sense.
And everybody who is anybody knows what Dave Grohl was doing before: checking out Skeeter’s dick!
Mike in NC
So in other words, he’ll be on his way out the door soon?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Who wrote that, Tim McVeigh?
Surely this whole piece is from the Onion.
Felonious Wench
@AhabTRuler: I’m going to take a wild guess and say Normal Guy wasn’t around much during the grunge era. Perhaps a zygote. Perhaps.
Annie
Why is anyone “embedding” with the Tea Party Express? If the media would go away, these idiots would go away. Better to embed on the subway. More people, more perspectives, more sanity…
scav
Found the set of paint chips they used for their colorful anger.
bey
@scav: That would explain the “colorful smiles”
LuciaMia
THIS IS CNN. (If you can think of any other ways we can whore ourselves, let us know.)
Allan
Colorful, as in, I never knew there were so many shades of white. They spanned the rainbow from alabaster to zinc oxide.
BruinKid
@JGabriel: Ah… I believe Shannon Travis is a man. At least, Weigel refers to Travis with a “his embed experience”.
A Mendoza
Boy, that dispatch by Shannon wrote sure sounds like something a publicist would write . . .