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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

That damned Perspective

What's Mallard raving about today?

Groupthink, The Media, Mallard Fillmore.

So the facts don't get lost in all of Mallard's nonsense, NPR fired Juan Williams because one of the faces of their network publicly stated that he has a blanket fear of people who, in his mind, look Muslim. They felt this statement damaged their credibility as a news organization.

The refuge where such a sentiment does not damage credibility (Fox) promptly hired Juan Williams.

Mallard's sellf-aggrandzing persecution complex aside, there's really not much to attack here. This is all manufactured outrage about the fact that the majority of people have reactions of outrage to overt statements of prejudice.

Mallard's beef isn't with NPR. It's with everyone who moved on from the fear-filled days immediately after 9-11 and decided not to capitulate to Terrorists with pants-wetting regularity.

13 comments:

Bill the Splut said...

Week Two on something nobody in the real world cared about. Awesome.

Tinsley: Sociopath said...

You would think that Tinsley's ability to associate every little problem that happens to racists with himself would be a sign of empathy, but no: He hates everyone, and cares about nothing unless it could hurt him. I am not sure I can call him a racist, so much as the epitome of a Nihilistic sadistic genocidal hermit. He thinks racism does not exist because he cannot accept anything outside of his frame of reference--and to him, humans are things that must die, slowly and agonizingly before they kill him.

Word Verification: Dyllif, Tinsley wants all llif to dy.

dlauthor said...

Interestingly, when Tinshley wets himself out of macho right-wing cowardice, the resulting pee is about 80 proof. He can then re-consume it, like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, much to the horror of his poor wife and children.

Tog said...

Mallard's self-aggrandizing persecution complex aside, there's really not much to attack here.

Well, there IS this: Batshit--who constantly and devotedly regurgitates the GOP dogma-of-the-moment, believes an asterisk referring the reader to Newsbusters or FOX Propaganda is all the backup he needs for the insane nonsense he spews, and plays lickspittle to the thinks-in-bumpersticker teabagger movement--deigns to lecture the rest of us on "groupthink."

That's just amazing, even for Batshit. Sure, there's some infighting in the GOP at the moment, but the left has always been self-critical (if there's any political body that holds Democrats in such open contempt as the GOP, it's progressives) while Batshit and all his hypocritical media heroes bark and simper from the same talking points memo.

Also, Batshit is suggesting that different "perspectives" have equal validity. This is the misstep that has given us Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck: twisting the value that "everybody has the equal right to an opinion" into "everybody's opinion is equally right," then "everybody has the right to have their opinion equally disseminated, no matter how bigoted, loathsome, or just plain false it may be," and ultimately "I don't care if it's true, it's what I want to believe." Want to pinpoint the moment American culture developed fatal cancer? Right fucking there. And Batshit LOVES it.

I don't particularly like Keith Olbermann, but he's been doing an excellent job lately of kicking Batshit's ass without even realizing it.

D Johnston said...

This is funny. Oh, not MF, the situation. Y'see, I've been busy the last few days, so I haven't been coming here and consequently, haven't been reading MF. The last one I saw was last Wednesday, in which Tinsley was bitching about Juan Williams. I come back today...and he's bitching about Juan Williams. Astonishing. I knew Tins was out of ideas, but I never suspected he was this bankrupt.

rewinn said...

Tinshley is too gutless to come out and say he defends Juan Williams' racism, so instead he goes with ... lactose intolerance?

I mean, really. If you're going to defend the firing of someone for making racists remarks on a rival's channel, shouldn't you at least have the guts to come out and say it? If you are so ashamed of what you support that you have to hide what you're supporting, maybe you shouldn't be supporting it.

(...and yeah, I know, Juan will say he's not really racist ... it's just that people who "dress Muslim" make him scared. But he's not racist, oh no! He thinks he's not racist because he followed up his remarks with a plea to treat Muslims well, even if they make you pee your pants.)

BTW I think Williams was in a stupid way trying to parallel Shirley Sherrod's story: she admitted to having racist feelings due to past abuse of her family, and she overcame them. But Williams said something different: that most people had the same racist fears he did, and that it was understandable, even o.k. It's not. We aren't all cowards like Williams, and racism is never o.k.)

VW: duckswis - a Mallard-Fillmore-themed cheese, full of holes and smelling bad,

Ducky is Right said...

Blah blah blah blah, boilerplate talking point #7b.

Lemme know when you start trying again, Slappy.

Tog said...

Ah, but guys, you'll notice that for the past couple of days, Batshit's been using his strawpeople to edge the whole thing away from "lactose intolerance HAW HAW," towards "MALLARD WUZ FIRD BCAUZ HE SPOK TROOTH 2 POWAR!!!1 & TEH MEEDEA JOOSPIRACY WUDDNT HAV IT"

I'd call it "devious," but that makes Batshit sound marginally intelligent. It's far more likely someone else just looked at his story in progress, told him how fucking stupid it was, then suggested this means of lying his way out.

Hardly the first time that's happened with Batshit.

Michael Foley said...

Okay, you see this shitty cartoon? This is by the same guy who tweeted:

"Mario Vargas Llosa JUST WON NOBEL FOR LITERATURE!!!! Maybe a conservative cartoonist still has a shot?...."

Frank Stone said...

"Groupthink". Lockstep-marching right-wing authoritarian ideologue Bruce Tinsley, who never had a thought in his head that Rush Limbaugh didn't put there, is bitching about "groupthink".

That's so rich, it has to be fattening.

exanonymous said...

Mallard's looking for peaceful Muslims who condemn 9/11. Williams mentioned that they make him nervous when he flies with them. Mallard has to use a stupid metaphor about lactose intolerance, because otherwise he'd have to admit that Williams' statements were true in that peaceful Muslims exist who fly around in airplanes without turning them into weapons. But he won't let his own intolerance stop him from defending a new FOX employee!

David in NYC said...

Sorry to inject some actual facts into Brucie's (and Juan's) pants-wetting fantasies, but has there EVER been an instance of people "in Muslim garb" committing an act of terror? IIRC, the 9/11 hijackers were dressed as "normal" (i.e., non-Muslim) people.

Which, of course, just proves how devious they are.

Kip W said...

The joke is that they're talking about Mallard on TV. Like they care.