Judicial Responsibility

As you watch the video below, note how FOX reporter Chris Wallace attempts to frame the subject of Judge Vaughn Walker's recent Proposition 8 ruling as controversial with leading questions dripping with unsupported opinion. Note also how Ted Olsen sticks to the subject, backs up his statements, and refuses to grant Wallace's diversions the status of fact, let alone credibility.

Near the four minute mark of the video, Wallace asks Olsen to define judicial activism and reminds him that he has opposed it in the past. This is an obvious setup designed to tag the Proposition 8 ruling with a favorite right-wing epithet.

In response, Olsen begins, "Well, most people use the term judicial activism to explain decisions that they don't like," and Wallace gleefully interrupts him, saying, "Exactly!"

To Wallace's interruption, however, Olsen says, "I'm sorry if I interrupted you." He then continues to explain the difference between judicial activism and judicial responsibility. His response decimates the credibility of any attempt on the part of Wallace to portray Judge Vaughn Walker's decision as judicial activism. It also lays the foundation for refuting any future attempts to do so by others who oppose the decision on those specious grounds.

Hypocrisy Un-Mosqued

Sam Seder pulls no punches. He calls out bullshit wherever it lands to foul America, and he identifies the purveyors thereof irrespective of their pedigree.

This time, Seder, who is a Jew, calls bullshit on all, including the Jewish Anti Defamation League, who have come out in opposition to the building of a Muslim community center in New York a block away from ground zero.

2010 GOP Primary

This image reveals the process the GOP is using in 2010 to choose candidates capable of passing the Tea Party litmus test.

Race War! : That's Bullshit

Q. Why all the race baiting from the folks on the right?

A. Because facts and reason don't support their core beliefs but hatred and fear do.

Q. Where can one go to clear away the FOX News bullshit and get the facts?

A. The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC at 9 PM.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Seeing Red and Feeling Blue

Earlier today I received the message quoted below from ColorOfChange.org, which detailed the firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod after she was maliciously portrayed as being racist by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart and FOX News. I responded by clicking the link and adding my name to those calling for the Obama administration to reinstate Shirley Sherrod.

Besides adding my name, I included the following personal comment:

Not only should Ms. Sherrod get her job back, with back pay, but the situation begs for an investigation to determine whether criminal intent was behind Andrew Breibert's posting of the highly edited and misleading video which cost her her job.

There is a difference between free speech and slander. One would hope that a former editor of the Harvard Law Review would understand that and have the courage to take on those who would use slander to foment racial hatred in America while claiming to exercise free speech rights. The pattern of Mr. Breitbart's racially-biased attacks is clear and well-documented.

The man who said "there is no red America, no blue America, there is the United States of America!" as a candidate would do well as president to openly confront those who use a single brush to color public perception, be it loaded with red or blue paint.

Should he choose to live up to his promise of uniting America through honest communication with the American people, he has Harry Truman as an exemplar.

Give 'em hell, Mr. President!

===

If you agree that Ms. Sherrod deserves to be reinstated, click the link in the message below and add your name to the list of folks who expect those in the Obama administration to own up to and correct errors when they make them, unlike the minions of his predecessor, who believed such honesty was a sign of weakness.

George

The original message:

Dear friends,

The Obama administration just caved in to the right-wing smear machine, firing a Black USDA official after she was smeared by far-right blogger Andrew Breitbart and his friends at Fox News Channel.

Sherrod's dismissal was based on a selectively edited video that made it appear she was confessing to discriminating against a White farming couple. In reality she was telling the story of how working with that family to save their farm helped her to lose her racial preconceptions.

It took less than 24 hours for the lies to be debunked. But by that time, it was too late -- Sherrod was forced to quit. And even now that the truth is known, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is refusing to reinstate her. Worse, Vilsack has President Obama's support. This kind of political cowardice is beyond shameful.

That's why I've joined the people at ColorOfChange.org in calling on the White House to immediately give Shirley Sherrod her job back, and to stop bowing to the will of right-wing propaganda artists. Will you join me?

http://colorofchange.org/shirley/?id=2070-948039

On Monday, Andrew Breitbart (a blogger who works closely with FOX News and has a long history of launching deceptive, racially charged smear campaigns) posted a deceptively edited video of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP function. The video shows Sherrod telling a story about how she once was asked for help from a White farmer, and how she didn't "give him the full force of what I could do" to help him, because of his race.

Breitbart used the video as evidence that the NAACP and the Obama administration tolerated racial discrimination against White people, saying that it showed Sherrod's "federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions." Breitbart's doctored video and false storyline moved quickly to FOX News, where on-air personalities called for Sherrod's firing.

The truth is that Sherrod was telling a 25-year old story about her work for a non-profit organization whose mission was to help Black farmers. Discrimination against Black farmers was rampant, and she described how she was first reluctant when approached by a White farmer named Roger Spooner for help (Sherrod also says that her father was killed by a White farmer 45 years ago). But after seeing that no one wanted to help Spooner she worked to save his farm, and eventually became good friends with his family.

Yesterday, Roger Spooner said that Sherrod saved their farm and kept them out of bankruptcy. He told CNN, "I don't know what brought up the racist mess. They just want to stir up some trouble, it sounds to me in my opinion."

A disturbing pattern

Sadly, the truth didn't matter at all. Soon after Breitbart's fake video surfaced, Sherrod was pressured by the White House to resign. Sherrod was never given a chance to tell her side of the story, and says that the Obama administration was "not interested in hearing the truth."

Once the truth became known, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement saying that whether or not the smear campaign against Sherrod was based in lies, it was necessary to fire her because the "controversy" would make it hard for her to do her job. The Obama administration is essentially saying that they will always back down in the face of dishonest, race-baiting smear campaigns launched by right-wing propagandists. They've ended the career of someone who did nothing wrong, and by handing a victory to the people who launched this deception, the administration is encouraging them to launch even more smears. All to avoid "controversy." It's pathetic, it's shameful, and it has to stop.

It's not the first time this has happened. Several members of the Obama administration have lost their jobs or been demoted, and nominees to cabinet positions have either stepped down or withdrawn their nominations after becoming the target of smear campaigns launched by FOX News and Breitbart.

It's bad enough that we have to fight the constant smear campaigns and appeals to racial paranoia from FOX and the right-wing media. But it's completely shameful and outrageous for the Obama administration to throw innocent public servants under the bus just to avoid having to fight back against the lies. It's not the first time it's happened -- but if enough of us call out the White House and tell them to stop running scared from FOX News, it might be the last.

Please join me and others in the ColorOfChange.org community in standing up for Shirley Sherrod, and demanding that the White House do the right thing now.

http://colorofchange.org/shirley/?id=2070-948039

Thanks.

Key Links:

"Fox smears Sherrod as racist, Sherrod cancels Fox interview," Media Matters for America, 7-20-2010 

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007200060

"NAACP 'snookered' over video of former USDA employee," CNN, 7-20-2010 

http://bit.ly/95Us9u

"Official: No WH pressure on Sherrod," Politico, 7-20-2010 

http://politi.co/cC4ndd

"Obama briefed after Sherrod incident," CNN Politics, 7-20-2010 

http://bit.ly/9ZuIWI

Crisis? What Crisis?

Sam Seder tells it like it is.

The Difference

The June 23, 2010 columns of Eugene Robinson and Thomas Sowell provide a case study in the difference between how those on the left (AKA elitist, pinko, nazi, socialist, bleeding-heart liberals) and those on the right (AKA patriotic, freedom-loving, tea-partying, take-our-government-back, just plain folks conservatives) view our country and its duly-elected President.

Both discuss events which followed President Obama's move to ensure that BP would pay for the damage done to the gulf coast by the disastrous oil spill it caused. But the similarity stops there.

Robinson's column discusses Congressman Joe Barton's (R-Texas) apology to BP for what he called a "shakedown" by President Obama. It also addresses the position of the GOP vis a vis the "proper" relationship between business and the interests of the American public. 

Despite his subsequent apology for that apology, 

Barton's remarks were no spontaneous gaffe. They came in a prepared statement and represent his genuine view of the situation: that the rights of a private company are absolute even when weighed against the clear interests of the public.

He points out and documents the following:

...Barton was only echoing a statement that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) had issued a day earlier in the name of the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of House conservatives whose Web site claims 115 members. The statement groused that there is "no legal authority for the president to compel a private company to set up or contribute to an escrow account" and accused the Obama administration of "Chicago-style shakedown politics."

And he dares to use the C-word, which the right-wing echo chamber lambastes as a sign of weakness, but which Robinson uses to illustrate the moral depravity of today's GOP:

A group constituting roughly two-thirds of all Republicans in the House takes the position that President Obama was wrong to demand that BP set aside money to guarantee that those whose livelihoods are being ruined by the oil spill will be compensated. In other words, it's more important to kneel at the altar of radical conservative ideology than to feel any sense of compassion for one's fellow Americans.

Robinson's treatment of the story is (to borrow the misused terminology of FOX Noise) fair and balanced as well as intellectually honest.

Sowell's column, in contrast, is a study in abject duplicity. Don't think so? Consider the following:

His screed is 100% unsupported bull-pucky. There are no links to articles which might lend even a modicum of credence to his assertions.

He begins with an inuendo, designed to invoke the Tea-Party imagery of President Obama as the reincarnation of Hitler:

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions

Yet he conveniently overlooks the fact that it is the GOP, which is fomenting fear to solicit the support of its ignorant and pliable, keep your government hands off my medicare Tea-Party faction.

He follows with this blatant example of bait-and-switch:

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive. In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.  

He makes no attempt to justify his assertion that that "democracy is being dismantled." We are, I suppose, to take it on faith that he has the proof but that he has chosen not to clutter up his column with unnecessary supporting links to what is undoubtedly self-evident to any "right-thinking" American.

Instead, he devotes ten paragraphs to repeating the standard litany Republican talking points to: decry the policies of the Obama administration, pimp for the right of big business to do whatever it wants without government interference, remind Americans that our decline started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and substitute bald-faced lies and distortions for historical fact.

In a final tour de force of yellow-journalism, Sowell invokes the "czar" bogeyman, which was not to be feared when George W. Bush was appointing one after another of them.

The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.

Finally, he pretends that he is sounding a warning against "arbitrary power." Yet, his entire column shows him to be nothing more than a shill for the arbitrary rights of powerful business and political interests and an opponent of the rights of the powerless whose livelihoods face extinction in a rising tide of oil.

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power-- versus the rule of law and the preservation of freedom-- are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?

Allow me to answer your question, Mr. Sowell. Those "useful idiots" are indispensable  to you and to those for whom you flack. You count on those "useful idiots' to blindly accept the assumptions of your ideology and to overlook your lack of journalistic integrity.

The Difference between the two columns can be summed up thusly:

Whereas Eugene Robinson's well-documented, thorough, and intellectually honest article should be required reading for every thinking American, print copies of Thomas Sowell's effort would be perfect for use as toilet paper in the heads of the trawlers deploying oil containment boom in the Gulf of Mexico.