Stop It

by digby

So Sorry. I didn’t mean to go dark this week-end — technical problems.

First I’d like to call out a big fuck you to all the bloggers and wingut radio blowhards who assumed that since Jill Carroll isn’t a screeching, GOP operative harpy like Laura Ingraham that she is sympathetic to terrorists. She had the guts to get out there and try to report from the belly of the beast and got kidnapped and terrorized while doing it. And these pathetic little chickenhawks had the unmitigated gall to attack her — apparently because she managed to survive and because she was a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor. I knew they hated Christian peace activists and enjoy it when they get beheaded, but I hadn’t realized that they wished that on journalists too.

You can’t win for losing with these people. Ingraham attacks the press for failing to get out there and report the “real” story, but when one does, and gets abducted because it’s so dangerous, she’s a terrorist sympathizer.

Might I make a little tiny suggestion to the kewl kidz of the DC press corps? Maybe you shouldn’t be quite so eager to appear on that fetid thug Don Imus’ show from now on. You have already shown that you don’t care about his hilarious sexist, racist commentary. But maybe you can be roused to just a tiny bit of personal integrity by this stomach churning attack on your fellow journalist:

IMUS: We’re back here on the “Imus in the Morning” program on the radio all over the country and on MSNBC. Well, the official position, of course, of the program, is thank god correspondent Jill Carroll from the Christian Science Monitor has been released.

MCCORD: You bet, since now maybe now she can resume her work for the Iraqi people for whom she has, you know — this has been a person who strived for their, represented their plight for a long, long time.

IMUS: Well, good for her.

MCGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the, try and sneak into the Green Zone.

IMUS: Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

MCCORD: Just because she always appears in traditional Arab garb and wearing a burka.

MCGUIRK: Yeah, what’s with the head gear? Take it off. Let’s see.

IMUS: No, no. This is not –

MCCORD: That’s why the Arab world called for her to be released, because, you know, she defended Iraqis. She was against the war in Iraq and, I wouldn’t be surprised if

IMUS: Well, so are we. So am I!

MCCORD: Exactly. She cooked with them, lived with them.

IMUS: This is not helping.

MCGUIRK: She may be carrying Habib’s baby at this point.

[laughter]

IMUS: Shut up! I’m begging you to shut up. Both of you. I’m going to murder both of you.

MCCORD: Just because she slept with them doesn’t mean she slept in the manner he’s talking about.

MCGUIRK: Something stinks.

IMUS: You are an SOB Steve McCord. Stop it! I am begging you both. Stop it! Stop it now! Stop it! This is outrageous.

MCCORD: The fact is that she can do what she wants to do. Representing the Iraqi people, the Baghdad people. Sure.

IMUS: She could. It’s not like she was representing the insurgents or the terrorists or those people.

MCCORD: Well, there’s no evidence directly of that –

IMUS: Oh, gosh, you better shut up! Oh, my gosh, I’m going to hurt you! I will hurt you! I don’t know when that will be exactly. But I’m going to.

MCCORD: We’re glad she was not harmed. And that she was –

IMUS: Yes. Ok. Let’s move along here now.

MCGUIRK: She’s like the Taliban Johnny or something.

IMUS: Ah, you son of a bitches. I’m begging you bastards. Thank you. Please, now, welcome to the Imus in the Morning program, from the great state of Arizona Congressman Hayworth.

HAYWORTH: Now, just a disclaimer, now, the previous opinions stated by Chuckles and Bernie, doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinions of the congressman from the Fifth District of Arizona.

How funny can you get? Imus said “the official” position is that they are glad she was releasedand Hayworth says the commentary doesn’t “necessarily” reflect his views so nobody can accuse them of being insensitive. Besides, that little good cop bad cop routine is hilarious. Think of the material they could have produced if she’d been beheaded. Comedy gold!

Firedoglake has a contest going to catalog the racist commentary in the rightwing blogosphere, so that when lying sacks of GOP talking points like Hugh Hewitt go on national television and claim that talk radio is “responsible” while the “fever swamp” of the left blogosphere is way out of control, Wolf Blitzer can do something other than suck his thumb and nod off, failing to note the eliminationist spew that characterizes most of the right blogosphere. I don’t know if it’s that he doesn’t know, doesn’t care or is afraid of that he-man Hugh Hewitt, but I think it’s important that he at least be armed with a rebuttal. If he allows these charges to go unchallenged after that, then there will have to be some action taken. This has gone on long enough.

The mainstream media is so entrenched in the Republican establishment that they have actually come to believe that Rush Limbaugh saying frequently that Democrats have no souls and should be deported is reasonable discourse. It’s long past time that we set the record straight. Apparently these beltway bubble boys and girls are going to have to be schooled that the right is not engaging in “reasonable discourse” when they accuse journalists of being cowards and terrorist sympathizers and being “the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests.” I know that’s hard to believe, but apparently that’s what we have to do.

Which kewl kid is going yuck it up with the I-man next, do you suppose?

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