Dan Savage has some sound advice for MSNBC after their tweet above:
OMG! MSNBC called all conservatives haters! MSNBC quickly deleted the tweet and apologized. Fox News never apologizes. Write a book that calls all liberals treasonous, write a book that calls all liberals fascists, and you are a welcome guest on Fox News. Send out one stupid, poorly-worded tweet—a tweet that got it half right (not all conservatives are angered by interracial families, but almost all people angered by interracial families are conservatives)—and Fox News won’t rest until you’re named, shamed, and fired.
Some advice for MSNBC: You deleted the tweet and you apologized. No firings this time, no tearful on-air bonus apologies, no soul-searching theatrics. Move the fuck on. Lean the fuck forward. Whatever the fucking fuck. But no grandiose acts of contrition, please, as that’s just blood in the water. People don’t berate Fox News for apologies, or demand that hateful idiots on the Fox News payroll be fired, because everyone knows it’s a waste of time. Fox News does not apologize when it fucks up. People don’t get fired for being idiots. (To the contrary, people get hired for being idiots.) MSNBC apologizes when it fucks up (me too!), and that’s to your credit. But don’t keep apologizing after you’ve apologized. That’s fucking stupid.
One more thing: if MSNBC or some other liberal target hadn’t said something negative about conservatives in time for Fox’s latest deadline, they would have just made it up. It’s stupid to over-apologize to your enemies, but it’s doubly stupid to to over-apologize to an enemy that takes offense at everything.
(You can watch the Cheerios ad on Savage’s blog.)
Belafon
If they want to have something like that tweeted, sent it and $2 to me. I won’t apologize.
Joey Maloney
O/T: Henry Waxman is retiring.
gogol's wife
I had just been thinking I hadn’t had Cheerios in a while, and after reading the article about this in the Times yesterday I put it on my shopping list.
jrg
The cost of not being the better person is that you can no longer claim that “Both sides do it” is a false equivalence, which sucks, because that idea is gaining traction.
Joey Maloney
Amazing. One side is dicks; the other side says “hey, look at those dicks”; and somehow that becomes “both sides do it”
MattF
In fact, wingers make lucrative careers out of publicly saying things that they believe will make libruls angry. Too many cases in point to cite any particular instance.
Ash Can
Why delete the tweet, let alone apologize? It’s the truth, and if the truth hurts it’s sure as hell not the messenger’s fault.
BruinKid
I am agog, I am agag, my Congressman is retiring after serving 40 years in the House. This is gonna set off something furious as candidates scramble to jump in this race now.
Wow. My vote may actually matter in this pretty safe Dem district for once. (Remember, California stupidly went to the top two system, so this district may actually send two Democrats to the general election, depending how strong the candidates are, thus wasting precious money that could’ve been spent on other races. See the Sherman-Berman race from 2012.)
jrg
@Joey Maloney: I’d say that was a valid point if the tweet was in response to a particular comment, rather than an unprovoked cheap shot.
Amir Khalid
I’m not even sure what MSNBC has to apologise for. There are racists on the American right who despise the idea of families like the one in the Cheerios ad. Okay, not all of them. Maybe MSNBC could have amended the tweet (if that’s possible) to say “… some on the right wing”.
johnny aquitard
Goddamn right.
So fucking tried of our hairless media falling over their asses to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of party of bigotry with the truth.
ruemara
Those twatsquatches freaked out about the original ad. What’s to apologize for?
? Martin
I could have sworn I saw a biracial family Cheerios ad a few months ago. Not this one, though. Weird.
Belafon
Maybe the next commercial can feature a black Jewish man and white Islamic man. “Dad’s,” the teenage daughter calls out while they are eating breakfast, “can I go to the movies with Josh?” They both look at each other and then at her.
Cacti
The liberal Richard Cohen probably won’t like the commercial either.
beltane
@? Martin: Yes, there was a Cheerios ad featuring a biracial family a few months ago. Predictably, there was a freakout among some on the right. It seems that we are all supposed to pretend said freakout never happened because Civility.
beltane
@Belafon: Or you can go for the trifecta with “Dad, can I go to the prom with Jessica?”
WereBear
Ask me, it was a perfectly truthful observation.
? Martin
@beltane: I don’t recall the freakout, but I remember seeing the ad and thinking ‘oh, cool, we can do this now’.
Belafon
@beltane: You could, but then that would just confirm that gay families produce gay children. Now, if they make a few different commercials about gay families…
Which also gives me the idea that the next commercial should be mom and dad being asked by their son if he can go to the prom with Josh.
(Yeah, Josh is a busy person.)
johnny aquitard
@Amir Khalid: The American Right has racism and hatred of the Other at its core.
Just look at the faces of the party’s leaders. Look at the faces at their national conventions. Look at who they are eager to be photographed with — they couldn’t get enough photo-ops with the guy from Duck Dynasty. Look at whose base shows up at rallies waving the confederate flag.
Part and parcel of the Right is the white supremacism and the bigotry that is at times just under the surface and at times blatant and overt.
The American right is in fact a bunch of haters; they’ve just been looking for a way to get away with it if they can, abstract it if they can’t and always always find a way to justify it.
BruinKid
So, certain Turkish groups are about to go into full meltdown mode, as the California state assembly UNANIMOUSLY passed a bill encouraging schools to use oral histories to teach the Armenian Genocide. Pro-Turkey lobbying groups had been furiously trying to stop this bill.
Ash Can
With cooler heads prevailing here, yes, I do see how an unprovoked crack like this is counterproductive, and I do agree that taking it down and apologizing was the right thing to do. But I agree with Savage. Not only is it silly to make a big deal about it, it’s a bad idea to draw additional attention to it. “Move the fuck on” is exactly right.
beltane
@BruinKid: I attended public high school in NYC in the 1980s where we were taught about the Armenian genocide. Why is this suddenly so controversial?
diana
@Belafon: you mean like Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi?
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/02/yotam-ottolenghi-profile
Bobby Thomson
@BruinKid:
Assuming they both are strong candidates, wouldn’t that have been spent in a primary, anyway?
catclub
@gogol’s wife: Also, Kellog is locking out Union workers.
Belafon
@diana: Seven billion people. I guess the probability is pretty high of getting any kind of combination you can think of. Thanks for the link.
And suck on it reactionaries. The world is far
strangerbetter than you can possibly control.feebog
The new Cherrios commercial, which will air during the Super Bowl, features the same bi-racial family; black dad, white mom. and cute as a button daughter. I’ve seen it, it is absolutely great, and of course the haters will hate it. Screw them, and good for Cherrios.
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
I think a white Jew and a black Muslim would be more realistic. And I think the ad should have the girl run in and ask “Dad” if she can go to the movies; the reveal that they’re a gay couple is when they both answer her at the same time.
BruinKid
@beltane: The U.S. doesn’t officially recognize that it even HAPPENED, because of pressure from the Turkish lobby. That’s fucked up in so many ways.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@jrg:
It’s never been just ‘both sides do it’ though. It’s always had that unspoken corollary of ‘but Democrats are always totally more evil and more awful for doing it’
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
It’s controversial because Armenian-Americans are a very vocal voting block here in California and have been pushing for all kinds of official remembrances, condemnations of Turkey, etc. The city where I live is majority Armenian (though we’re starting to get a lot of Koreans as well) and the genocide stuff is a huge deal.
BruinKid
@Bobby Thomson: Some. But you can only spend so much money in a given time frame. (See Brewster’s Millions.) Again, see Sherman-Berman 2012 to see how Democrats kept pouring money into that race all the way to November.
rikyrah
Why the rich are freaking out
The nation’s wealthiest 1 percent appear to be having a collective meltdown
By BEN WHITE | 1/30/14 5:02 AM EST
NEW YORK — The co-founder of one the nation’s oldest venture capital firms fears a possible genocide against the wealthy. Residents of Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side say the progressive mayor didn’t plow their streets as a form of frosty revenge. And the co-founder of Home Depot recently warned the Pope to pipe down about economic inequality.
The nation’s wealthiest, denizens of the loftiest slice of the 1 percent, appear to be having a collective meltdown.
Economists, advisers to the wealthy and the wealthy themselves describe a deep-seated anxiety that the national — and even global — mood is turning against the super-rich in ways that ultimately could prove dangerous and hard to control.
President Barack Obama and the Democrats have pivoted to income inequality ahead of the midterm elections. Pope Francis has strongly warned against the dangers of wealth concentration. And all of this follows the rise of the Occupy movement in 2011 and a bout of bank-bashing populism in the tea party.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/wealthy-top-one-percent-economy-finance-102833.html#ixzz2rtwjnM4B
patrick II
Conservaties who aren’t really offended by interracial families are using conservatives who are to further their political cause. The republican/conservative southern strategy makes them all guilty, in one way the other, of furthering racism.
rikyrah
Paul targets ‘Post Office Gun Ban’
01/30/14 10:44 AM
By Steve Benen
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee met yesterday to tackle an important bill that probably won’t get too much attention: a wide-ranging postal reform package. It’ll tackle several key areas of postal policy, including postage rates, post-office banking, pensions for USPS employees, etc.
But during the hearing, Sen. Rand Paul had a new postal provision he’s apparently excited about. The Kentucky Republican wants to include a provision in postal reform that would “remove a federal ban on guns in post offices.”
Paul said his gun rights amendment would allow licensed gun owners to carry weapons inside post offices, rather than having to unholster them and keep them in the car. Guns are banned in federal buildings, including post offices.
Yep, when it comes to postal reform, Paul’s priority is allowing more guns in post offices.
As Lisa Rein’s Washington Post report noted, the senator’s provision wasn’t added to the legislation – committee members said the idea “would require more study” – but some on the far-right nevertheless seem quite excited about the possibility.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-targets-post-office-gun-ban
Roger Moore
@BruinKid:
More accurately, the US doesn’t OFFICIALLY recognize that it happened. I can see the point of people saying that calling for a legally approved version of history is a slippery slope; history is better left to historians rather than politicians.
Anya
Didn’t Richard Cohen tell us that cultural conservatives were justified to “repress a gag reflex” when considering interracial children and families? Did any conservatives object to that characterization?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@patrick II:
The bloodless cynicism of those who, while MAYBE not being personally racist, are still willing to reap the political benefits of exploiting racism is, in some ways, even worse than if they were true believers.
Belafon
@Roger Moore: Possibly, and I was exaggerating a bit. However it’s done, I think the important part would be getting the Dad look from two Dads. Maybe as the spoons of Cheerios are halfway up to their mouths.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@rikyrah:
Well, of course, because guns are the only freedom that fucking matters, you super-psycho gun-grabbing commieeeeeeeee!!!!!
Good fucking christ, if their go-to-solution for everything isn’t ‘tax cuts’ and ‘share the pain’, it’s ‘GUNS, GUNS, MORE GUNS, EVERYWHERE’.
Mandalay
And it’s triply stupid to provide your opponents with ammunition in the first place. Generic accusations of racism are ineffective and counterproductive.
some guy
wow, the Waxman-Berman Machine is having a last hurrah! this is awesome news for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
some guy
wow, the Waxman-Berman Machine is having a last hurrah! this is awesome news for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
schrodinger's cat
Why is MSNBC so chicken?
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
I think it’s a good general idea for an ad featuring a gay couple. I’m imagining her running in and asking “Dad” if she can do whatever, a brief pause, and then the two dads simultaneously giving her opposite answers. They look at each other with the “I can’t believe we just did that” look, then switch to the “I still love you anyway” look, reach out and hold hands across the table.
danielx
Golf clap.
My imperfect understanding clearly prevents me from understanding why they apologized at all. Wingers will hate the ad and will rave about political correctness, a perfect storm of derp. Why say you’re sorry for speaking the truth? Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke; that’s always the winger reaction when some winger asshole says something seriously offensive and people get all up in arms about it.
MikeJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
Because liberals won’t burn down the local affiliate if they’re displeased by coverage.
aimai
@jrg: But the tweet was in response to a sustained hysterical attack on the previous biracial cheerios ad. This is an ongoing conversation about race with actual, real life, racists who are spread all across the right wing bloggosphere and in comments at local newspapers. Its like a flash mob of hate that coalesces around incidents which it considers “provocative” like the previous cheerios ad. The tweet was completely accurate w/r/t the probable result of showing the ad at halftime. The smart thing to do would have been to put the tweet in the form of a bet for what will happen afterwards rather than making a blanket accusation. Or phrase it to push the buttons of Malkin et al.
Roger Moore
@danielx:
I agree with Mandalay‘s comment that generic accusations against a large group are a mistake. If a right-wing freakout is inevitable, wait for specific wingnuts to say specific, predictably stupid things, and then hold those particular statements up to ridicule. It’s easy enough to do that in a way that criticizes the general worldview they’re expressing, so that you’re including anyone who says or thinks the same thing. Then you’re attacking a specific wrongheaded statement rather than a strawman.
some guy
@BruinKid:
Brad Sherman kicked Berman’s ass, a considerable feat given that Berman himself had drawn the lines of the district. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And now his partner is resigning. excuse me while I shed some crocodile tears.
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: How about arming postmen? That’ll provide a good excuse for right-wing shut ins to finally have that shootout with the government they’ve been dreaming of.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@BruinKid:
California also elected a Democratic super majority to the state lege. I’ll take a working legislature over a bit of wasted money any day.
Just Some Fuckhead
This is where I’m supposed to defend MSNBC because they are allegedly on “my side”. Yawn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Remember when the DNC boycotted Fox News over the “terrorist fist jab” and “Michelle: Barack’s Babymama”?
Neither do I.
scav
Anybody else seeing a mismatch between levels of corporate hierarchy? Tweety PR stirring up buzz semi-under-the-radar v. more conservative levels of upper management.
Belafon
@Roger Moore: That would be totally unrealistic. If they give opposite answers, one of them should say “We’ll talk about it later.” As she storms off, he can say to the other one “You know how I feel about Josh.”
I know, not quite a Cheerios commercial any more.
BruinKid
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Ah, that had nothing to do with it. I cannot think of a single race for the state legislature where the top two system was the reason a Democrat won. We would’ve gotten a supermajority regardless, simply because of the state’s demographics once we redistricted.
The top two DID cost us a U.S. House seat when four Democrats split the vote enough so that two Republicans advanced to the general election in CA-31, a district where Obama got over 57% of the vote, and so they get to be represented by the odious Gary Miller (R) right now.
aimai
@Roger Moore: Well, if they were really being smart about it they would have tweeted out something that Malkin et al would have risen to like fish to bait:
New Cheerios Ad in honor of Our First Biracial President!
New Cheerios Ad in honor of the Xth anniversary of Loving v. Virginia!
New Cheerios Ad reminds us of how far we’ve come as a Country.
I guaran-dam-tee you that the official, wear-the-t-shirt and work-for-the-graft right wing from Malkin to Glenn Reynolds and Rush Limbaugh would have had foaming at the mouth level hysterics over this cultural appropriation of football/advertising/cheerios by mixed race people and their presumed liberal fan club. They simply can’t help themselves. Only *after* that do you comment on the obvious fact that their day jobs are as paid shills for the right wing.
burnspbesq
I would think that yer average racist wing nut would feel more of an existential threat from the Chase ad featuring an affluent, upwardly mobile African-American family putting down roots in a new home town (how upwardly mobile? SUV, iPad, and lacrosse stick upwardly mobile).
LanceThruster
All they had to do is add the qualifier that is part and parcel of the FAUX MO…
Some people might say…
Gex
@Ash Can: Yeah, I don’t think it is the place of MSNBC to instigate something. Report on it after the fact, point out that it happened last time, then you can make you comments about conservatives freaking out over Cheerios ads.
Report the news, don’t make the news.
@rikyrah: They shouldn’t have pushed things to the breaking point then. People aren’t just going to lie down and die because they’ve become “surplus” population our overlords no longer want to employ. If you put people in a situation where it’s kill or be killed, you better bet it will get dicey. They are lucky we are still at a place where the problems can be dealt with politically.
WereBear
It’s my theory that they are like this because they know they are messed up sick twisted greedheads… and the bill will come due.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Cleek’s Law. It’s been developing for forty years, but now their entire decision making process is ‘Liberals want to restrict X, MORE X.’
Ksmiami
Not all republicans are racist sh?!) bags, but most racists are republican — it’s just a truism
chopper
@jrg:
unprovoked? all the right-wing does is provoke.
Mustang Bobby
Per TPM, RNC Chair Reince Preibus is banning RNC staff from appearing on MSNBC until Phil Griffin opens a vein in the middle of Central Park.
Finally they found a way to get rid of all those annoying pricks. Good going.
Helen
Savage is correct. Bill O’Reilly once bragged that he had NO corrections on his show EVA, and the NY Times had at least one a day.
Yeah; stupid asshole is stupid.
maurinsky
If you are offended because a Tweet suggested you might be offended by a cereal commercial with a biracial family, maybe it’s because you’re a racist and you really don’t deserve an apology for someone poking you in your bigotry.
Culture of Truth
RNC Chair Reince Preibus is banning RNC staff from appearing on MSNBC
OH NOE!!!!!!
Ash Can
And having said that, I think MSNBC should report the living hell out of the reaction across the right wing once the commercial has aired, because that reaction will of course be racist as all shit.
Patrick
@Culture of Truth:
Did Rince Preibus ever apologize for all those Republicans who stated that our President was not born in our country? The level of hypocrisy and crocodile tears from the GOP is mind-boggling.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
I don’t think so. Upwardly mobile minorities might be a problem to the most virulent racist, but that’s a kind of progress that demonstrably can and has been rolled back. Interracial marriage and biracial kids are an attack at the very premise of our racist system, the idea that race exists and is a valid way of dividing people. In the long run, Loving is a much more significant attack on the core of racial discrimination than Brown.
Ben Cisco
Of course, all the “why does MSNBC keep doing X” is predicated on the theory that Phil Griffin DOESN’T want to slurp Faux Snooze, the Teabagger demo, and NeoConfederates in general.
I find the logic in that theory…flawed.
Patricia Kayden
@Cacti: Shouldn’t liberal be in quotes? If Cohen is liberal, then I’m a raging T’Bagger.
kindness
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Thank God too. Stupid Howard Jarvis and his Prop 13 bullshit hit us hard. We went 20 years with the Republicans dicking us every single year during budget time because they always had about 40% in the Legislature and they pulled exactly what Republicans in Congress have pulled on Obama. For 20 years! And then ran ads blaming the Democrats for not having a functioning Legislature. Don’t get me started…
jl
@kindness: And the change in the CA GOP tone since they became a super minority politically is interesting. They actually try to make sense when they talk, very few spittle flecked deranged diatribes or strings of fantastical lies yelled out as statements of obvious truth.
Then of course, about the only major state GOP official who I ever hear interviewed is the assembly minority leader Connie Conway. Maybe they have banned some of the lunatics from giving interviews.
They must be doing some kind of outreach and reputation repair. I hope the CA voters do not fall for it, since I think the CA GOP will revert back to their old selves immediately if they ever break 1/3 in either chamber.
As for the subject of the post, I don’t think MSNBC should even make an apology for that tweet. I also think people and organizations should stop putting out so many silly tweets, and the one MSNBC put out is an example.
Skippy-san
I have a British satellite system and they have ads with mixed race couples all the time. ( White wife, black husband usually). People don’t go nuts over it. Then again-they do have commercials for payday lenders out the wazoo.
GRANDPA john
reminds me of something I read some where. “ Never apoligize, your friends don’t need it, and your enemies won’t believe it.
Aimai
@GRANDPA john:
Here’s one I just made up:
There is no high ground, only battle ground.
A) MSNBC is not an arm of the democratic party
B) What they say or do does not reflect in any way anyone’s opionions but their own.
C) They were completely correct–the party of permanent offense and whiny crap is permanently offended and whining.
D) what you said plus never explain, never complain, just get even.
cwolf
“MSNBC called all conservatives haters! …”
Huh? Well glad you cleared that up.
My lying eyes thought the tweet said:
“Maybe the Right Wing will hate it…”
cwolf
MSNBC called all conservatives haters! …
Huh? Well glad you cleared that up.
My lying eyes thought the tweet said:
“Maybe the Right Wing will hate it…
Liberty60
@beltane: Nope- go big, or go home:
“Dads, can I go with Jessica to the abortion clinic?”
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
@ Patricia Kayden:
Cohen’s an “even-the” liberal.
mouse tolliver
They actually did fire the guy who posted that tweet according to the statement Ari Melber just read on The Cycle.
So fucking lame. This is why Republicans can keep elections close enough to steal. It’s because liberals have to fight with one hand tied behind out backs. Righties get to say whatever they want — no matter how wrong, hateful, offensive or dishonest it is. But the tiniest little slip from the left ends up with somebody banned from TV or completely out of a job.
JaneE
“Maybe the right wing will hate it” isn’t even a definite statement, and based on the reaction to the first commercial, the statement is certainly justified, and almost certainly definitely true. About the only thing this will accomplish is drive up the number of views for the commercial. And possibly sell a few Cheerios.
drkrick
@Roger Moore:
True enough, but public school curricula will always be in the hands of politicians one way or another.
voncey
“Fox News does not apologize when it fucks up”
Fox News does not apologize because according to Fox News, they don’t fuck up. They mean it, whatever horrible awful thing someone said, they agree with it.
burnspbesq
The Chevy ad in the Savage article cracked me up, but Chevy is already on thin ice with wingnuts because of the barrel-rider ad. Imagine: a woman who can take care of herself without the help of a man, and puts ribbons on her wall instead of in her hair. Unpossible!
Shazza
@? Martin: It’s the same family. There’s also a Swiffer ad featuring an interracial family.