The Duke Boys - Free at Last
MSNBC felt compelled to give wall-to-wall coverage to their firing of Don Imus, which is really important news, and did not so much as mention the dropping of charges against the three Duke Lacrosse players. The despicable Keith Olbermann did manage to sneak in a condemnation of Bill O'Reilly for having the audacity to speak out against illegal immigrants, but covering the denoument of one of the most notorious racial-witch hunts of the decade would apparently besmirch MSNBC's politically-perfect cred.
CNN, on Paula Zahn's show, performed an appropriate media mea culpa, featuring Howie Kurtz, but does anyone believe they wouldn't do exactly the same thing again? Who knows, perhaps they learned their lesson.
Duke's president Brodhead should resign, since he helped spearhead the frenzy by not only refusing to support the players but by cancelling the Lacrosse team's season and suspending the players indefinitely. Nifong himself must be disbarred, and the state attorney general's harsh words will serve as a signal to the NC Bar to do just that.
CNN, on Paula Zahn's show, performed an appropriate media mea culpa, featuring Howie Kurtz, but does anyone believe they wouldn't do exactly the same thing again? Who knows, perhaps they learned their lesson.
Duke's president Brodhead should resign, since he helped spearhead the frenzy by not only refusing to support the players but by cancelling the Lacrosse team's season and suspending the players indefinitely. Nifong himself must be disbarred, and the state attorney general's harsh words will serve as a signal to the NC Bar to do just that.
posted by ziel | 4/11/2007 10:32:00 PM
3 Comments:
I happened to catch Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" segment (how bad are things when this is how the news is framed?) castigating O'Reilly.
No addressing the validity of his assertions, just a pious tone (and a pretentious quoting of Shakespeare) condemning him for not "letting these people grieve" so O'Reilly can "advance (a) twisted political agenda."
The problem with O'Reilly of course is his choice of means and methods, shouting down interviewees, shilling for Bush and the Party, etc. His opinions shouldn't matter. Olbermann can't even keep in the spirit of the segment, which is intended to condemn outrageous personal behavior, not opinion.
Olbermann chose not to address the issue that O'Reilly has been hammering away at, higher proportions of illegal alien drunk drivers who are not deported sometimes after multiple convictions, and the media's refusal to even notice the phenomenon.
As for the unfortunate African immigrants who died partly as a result of their own overcrowding of an apartment, Keith thought he scored a rhetorical point by noting that it hadn't even yet been determined whether or not they were illegal. Gee, no story there; we don't even know their status at this late date.
I do wonder what his coverage of the Duke case looked like, and if Mike Nifong ever made his "Worst Person" list.
My 30 something cousin and her baby son were killed by drunk illegals a few years ago. So, now two kids are without a mother and very decent young man is without his lovely wife. The illegals were deported, but could very well be back in the US.
By the way, NPR refuses to reveal the name of the Duke rape accuser stating their policy is "not to name the victims of sexual assault." Unbelievable.
Look,
I understand that when reading bloggers you have to allow for some margin of error when it comes to fact checking and researching each of their random posts.
But as someone who has studied under and observed Richard Brodhead over a number of years; you are making a foolish and ignorant statement of the first degree.
After spending his entire life at Yale (from undergraduate to Dean)...he decided to try his hand as the head of an elite university and within days of assuming the responsibilities of President, this incident fell into his lap. I'd hope you could understand if he didn't know how to react absolutely perfectly in your (conveniently) 2020 hindsight.
Yale, isn't exactly a haven for world class athletes, so dealing with that demographic and the baggage that comes with them is not his forte.
I guess what I'm saying is, as a current events blogger, I undertand you are picking some fights. But Christ, given the general idiocy of our democracy, at least pick some of the low hanging fruit. Brodhead is one of the good guys...not the bad. And, well, if you think he's one of the bad guys, you might as well throw in the towel and give up because all is clearly lost.
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