An open letter to David Carr at the New York Times
David,
I have some thoughts about how the media have been covering the blogs lately that I’d like to share with you (and with my readers, hence the public format). First, I should make it clear up front that I understand you are not the author of, nor are you personally responsible for, any of the articles and/or media trends discussed below. However, since I don’t really have a lot of contacts at the Times, and since I’ve known you for awhile now, going back to your days in what we quaintly refer to as the “alternative press” — and more importantly, since blogs and New Media are at least part of your beat at the Times — I’m directing this toward you in the hope that you’ll be receptive to it.
To make a long story short, the mainstream corporate media in general, as well as the Times in particular, are missing the real story about the blogs lately, as everyone focuses on all the awful hate and anger emanating from the left, and specifically, how it’s being directed toward poor ol’ Joe Lieberman. It is true that language has been used on the left wing blogs that would not be appropriate for a polite tea party, or a church social, and I would certainly like to extend my sincere apologies, on behalf of my friends in the liberal blogging community, to those of your colleagues whose response has been a heartfelt “Mercy me!” as they fan themselves and clutch their pearls and wonder what the world is coming to. (Mostly what someone like, say, David Brooks is responding to in this context is probably the phrase “Rape Gurney Joe,” which I believe was coined by Jane Hamsher in response to Joe Lieberman’s suggestion that rape victims unable to receive appropriate medical treatment at a Catholic hospital should simply take a “short hike” to another facility. Personally, I’m more offended by the insensitivity of the Senator toward victims of a brutal and dehumanizing crime — but maybe that’s just me.)
The thing is, David, that while your colleagues focus on the occasional swear word or internecine pissing match on left wing blogs, they mostly ignore what’s happening on the right half of the blogosphere. And it’s a fever swamp over there, it really is. Accusations of treason, made in utter seriousness, are routinely levelled against journalists who have the audacity to report the facts, and against Democratic Senators who have the temerity to oppose the president. To their credit, Newsweek’s Blogwatch column this week notes a prominent right-wing blogger responding to the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision with the comment “Five ropes, five robes, five trees. Some assembly required.” (A similar sentiment, aimed at journalists, can be found on the site of a t-shirt company that frequently advertises on right-wing blogs.) Here’s one question: if such rhetoric can be laughed off by your colleagues as mere hyperbole — particularly when they are frequently the suggested target — why on earth do they get so worked up over a few allegedly foul-mouthed liberals?
One example I’m sure you’re aware of: when the Travel Section of the New York Times published a puff piece about Cheney and Rumsfeld’s vacation homes, the right-wing blogosphere concluded that it was a deliberate attempt to aid an Al Qaeda assassination plot. Starting out from this delusional premise, they decided that the only appropriate response was to seek out and publicize the addresses and home phone numbers of New York Times reporters in retaliation — and started with the unfortunate freelance photographer who shot the article’s accompanying photos with Secret Service permission.
These are not people upon whom reality exerts an undue influence. It would be laughable, if not for the very real possibility that some nutcase out there will take it all a little too seriously.
So how about it? How about writing the story that really needs to be written — the story of major right wing blogs, and the unhinged rhetoric and implied threats they either routinely employ or uncritically link to? I’m sure Glenn Greenwald would be happy to talk to you — he’s been covering this lately with the single-minded focus of a former trial attorney (which he is). For example:
The extremist and increasingly deranged rhetoric and tactics found in the right-wing blogosphere — not only among obscure bloggers but promoted and disseminated by its most-read and influential bloggers — is, indeed, “a very common disease.” When it becomes commonplace to hurl accusations of treason against domestic political opponents, or when calls for imprisonment and/or hanging of journalists and political leaders become the daily fare — all of which is true for the pro-Bush blogosphere — those are serious developments. And they merit discussion and examination by the media.
Instead of yet another story on whether Kos diarists are arguing with each other more than before or whether liberal bloggers curse too much, let us read about the extremist rhetoric, vicious character smears, and deliberate incitement to violence that has become the staple of the largest pro-Bush blogs –Malkin, Powerline, Instapundit and LGF — along with the bloggers whom they tirelessly promote. Hundreds of thousands of people each day, including pundits and television news producers, are reading this material. The journalistic value in examining it and reporting on it ought to be self-evident.
…LGF has a post today entitled “The Media are the Enemy” — a title which really summarizes one of the principal points made on a daily basis by the blogs maintained by Powerline, Instapundit, and Malkin. Today’s treasonous act is that a NYT photographer took photographs of a member of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army engaged in combat with American forces. Apparently, taking a photograph of someone engaged in a war is the same as aiding and abetting them and being on their side and rooting for them to win. Hence, photographers who take photographs of the enemy are themselves “the enemy.”
LGF then links to Jeff Goldstein, who — in a post entitled “Sleeping with the Enemy” — declares: “Looks like the NYT has decided to go with neutrality over objectivity—essentially severing ties with their own country in the service of what they believe is a higher journalistic good: Pulitzer Prizes.” He then thanks Michelle Malkin for the tip.Goldstein’s post is then predictably followed by comments such as this:
It is clear (as it has been) that the NYT’s has chosen their side. They should suffer the consequences thereof. I just hope they do.
And this:
Talk of treason is out of fashion for some reason, but I could see some photographer hanged without losing too much sleep over it.
And this:
As i said over at LGF, pity the reporter didn’t catch any return fire.
That’s just from the first few comments I looked at following Goldstein’s Treason Accusation of The Day against the NYT. Undoubtedly, there are scores more like them as his comment thread “evolves.”
That’s just the briefest taste, David. Media Matters has more here. Glenn has more too (this is a particularly good rundown of some appallingly lazy media coverage of the blogs).
As I tried to point out in this cartoon, I don’t know why the mainstream media continue to not only give these right-wing bloggers a pass, but in many cases to actively provide them with a larger platform — because these people despise you. They think you’re the enemy. “Rope, Tree, Journalist” — you think that’s just a wacky harmless joke? They want to publish your home addresses — one right wing blog has published satellite photos of Arthur Sulzburger’s home, for chrissakes. You think they’re encouraging their readers to stop by with unexpected gifts, or maybe pizza and beer? They’re immature children lashing out with threats of implied violence that they probably don’t really ever expect to see carried out — but I’m sure you know as well as I do how many crazy people are out there online. Somebody has to shine a light on this before it gets out of hand, because otherwise, one of these days, we’re going to have another Alan Berg on our hands.
When liberals criticize the media, we do so because we want you to do your job better. When right-wingers criticize the media, they do so because they want to destroy you.
See the difference?
So that’s my pitch. Your colleagues have written enough stories about how left wingers use swear words. It’s time for somebody smart to take a real, in-depth look at how major right wing blogs, some with circulations that are probably higher than you enjoyed as an altweekly editor, are actively inciting violence against politicians and judges and journalists — and to call bullshit on it.
Emily Litella speaks out on the situation in the middle east
Your heart just has to break to see these Shiite children in Lebanon smiling and writing “messages” on the rockets that soon will devastate Israeli homes. What kind of sick society produces little girls who exult in the infliction of pain against people they’ve never met?
And look at the woman in the background, presumably their mother—clearly she approves! Sadly, until the Arabs let go of their culture of incitement and rage, I’m afraid there’s no concession Israel can ever make that will bring peace with these people.
What’s that?
Those aren’t Lebanese girls writing on Hezbollah rockets, but Israeli girls writing on Israeli shells?
The influence I (and most everyone else) can have on the ever-greater catastrophe in the mideast is minimal. So why do so many people feel compelled to learn as much as possible about what’s happening? For myself, I’ve decided it’s so that in 2009 when terrorists set off the atomic device ten blocks from my house, I can—just before I turn into a puff of water vapor—shout “I understand EXACTLY why this is happening!”
Anyway:
1. Dennis Perrin imagines what would happen if Israel were Lebanon and Lebanon were Israel.
This is fascinating as well as terrifying. It suggests that Bush and his faithful water carrier both really believe their own bullshit…it’s hard not to be impressed with the level of delusion picked up by that treacherous microphone.
4. Chris Floyd: “…since we do live in a world dominated by vicious (not to say vacuous) sectarian folderol, we should at least try to deal with the actual reality in front of us, not the heat mirages thrown off by warring sects.”
The prisoners Hizbullah wants released are hostages who were taken on Lebanese soil. In the successful prisoner exchange in 2004, Israel held on to three Lebanese detainees as bargaining chips and to keep the battle front with Hizbullah open. These detentions have become a cause celebre in Lebanon.
The world may be going to hell in a handbasket, but until we actually arrive I still have my usual deadlines — complicated this week by my new friend the contractor, who’s going to be spending a few days underfoot. So probably not much from me here for a couple of days. Co-bloggers are welcome to step up to the plate, if so inclined.
James Byrd had it bad, but at least he wasn’t a rich white man who died of natural causes :
“I am glad to have known Ken Lay and glad that he was willing to reach down and touch people like me,” said the Rev. William Lawson, pastor emeritus of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. “Ken was a rich and powerful man, and he could have limited his association to people who were likewise rich and powerful.”
. . .
Lawson likened Lay to James Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death in a racially motivated murder near Jasper eight years ago.
“Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, as James Byrd was, but I’m angry because Ken was the victim of a lynching,” said Lawson, who predicted that history will vindicate Lay.
For those of you who might be making the same mistaken comparison as Rev. Lawson, here’s a couple of pictures that might clear things up for you :
On the left is a photo of Kenneth Lay in handcuffs being led to the courtroom where he was being given his constitutional right to a fair trial for crimes he was alleged to have committed. On the right is a pair of black corpses hanging from a tree surrounded by a crowd of racist white people who seem to have viewed their senseless murders as little more than an excuse for a social gathering. Kenneth Lay died at his Aspen vacation home after having a heart attack. James Byrd died on a Jasper, Texas road after being dragged from a pickup truck until his head and right arm were ripped off.
The lighter side of widening slaughter in the mideast
You know the funniest part about Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and the likelihood of a much wider war in the mideast? Of course, it’s hard to choose because there’s so much funny about it. But I think the top contender clearly is that, before the invasion of Iraq, the people pushing war kept telling us how “the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad.”
In other words, invading Iraq would show the dirty Arabs—who only understand force—that we and Israel couldn’t be pushed around. Then the Palestinians would knuckle under in the West Bank and Gaza and we’d all live happily ever after.
One excellent example from a September, 2002 issue of the New Republic can be found here. As you’d expect, it’s written by Martin “I Have Literally Never Been Correct About Anything In My Entire Life” Peretz:
The road to Jerusalem more likely leads through Baghdad than the reverse. Once the Palestinians see that the United States will no longer tolerate their hero Saddam Hussein, depressed though they may be, they may also come finally to grasp that Israel is here to stay and that accommodating to this reality is the one thing that can bring them the generous peace they require.
You could go on citing things like this until the sun explodes. So I’ll just provide one more, from the website of a New York Republican activist. This deserves a Special Jury Prize for having been written in October, 2004:
Indeed the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad. Without Saddam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved under Bush’s second term. And peace can begin to spread in the region, backed by 3 Democracies.
Right on! Furthermore, with people as wise and informed as this in charge of our foreign policy, I see nothing but even greater success ahead!
(Update: both posters have sold since I wrote this post, and the referenced announcement has been deleted.)
As you can see from the announcement above, I’m putting one more set of the NSA satire posters up for auction. (As noted above, this is the last time I’ll be making these available, so if you want either or both, bid early and often.) The reserve price for each poster is set at what its predecessor went for in the last auction. I’ve also put up a slightly higher Buy It Now price on each in case anybody’s too impatient to wait for the end of the auction.
And that’s where it gets interesting.
If you were online Tuesday night, and paying attention, you would have seen that these auctions went up at about 9:30 pm EST, and ended early through Buy it Now about two hours later. I had my doubts, when I saw this the next morning — the buyer had zero feedback and was using a yahoo email account. And had the unlikely name “Mike Nike.” But I went ahead and sent an invoice and waited.
No response.
Logged into eBay today and noticed that Mike Nike was “no longer a registered user.” Which made things easier for me — I was able to cancel out the auctions and relist them with a minimum of hassle as a result. I figured the buyer was either (a) a Republican fucking with me, or (b) somebody who had a few too many drinks on Tuesday night and woke up Wednesday morning with Buy it Nowers remorse.
Then I got an email from Mike Nike, with the subject line “Answer my questions and email me your full name and address and you mobile number.”
I agreed to pay the amount you want as buy it now any additional money for the shipping and handling. Here will go i am using this opportunity to inform you that the amount that will be on the moneyorder will more than your item fees.I don”t realy know the exact amount that will be.Because it will be issue by my client.and the reason of the over payment is that.the amount on the moneyorder has been signed already.And it is more than your item fees.so once you receive it.you must deduct your item fees and westernunion the balance money to my client manager in africa.the item is going to africa also the shipping and westernunion address will come with the payment.
There will be no problem about the shipment.I want you to responsible for it.also make sure you deduct ur item fees and westernunion any aditional money on the m/o once you receive it.and email me ur phone# asap today.
Below are the questions i have for you.
1)is the item in good condition?
2)is any westernunion location where you to send the balance money arround you?
3)can you make sure you get the m/o cash at ur bank the sameday you receive it?
4)can you allow me to send DHL for the pick up and complet the transaction the day you receive the
moneyorder?
If yes too all my questions.kindly email me back asap today so that the moneyorder can be send
…and suddenly it all made sense — I was dealing with a low-grade variation of the classic Nigerian email scam.
So consider this a public service announcement, especially you eBay users — I don’t know if this is already a commonly-known scam, but my guess is, as fewer and fewer people are willing to help “transfer fifty billion dollars out of my country,” we’ll see more penny ante stuff like this.
Oh, and by the way — on this auction, Buy it Now only works if you pay via Paypal immediately. Sorry, Mike Nike.
I guess there’s a one percent chance the terrorists might target the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton, Illinois, or the Old MacDonald Petting Zoo in Woodville, Alabama. Therefore we must act as if it is a certainty!
I’ve been reading Suskind’s new book, the title of which refers to the doctrine Cheney adopted after 9/11 — essentially that if there’s a one percent chance that someone might do something terrible, the administration must act as if it is a certainty.
It takes a little while for the horror of that to sink in, but when you really think about it, it effectively means that this country has been governed by complete madmen for the past five years. Life is all about making reasonable decisions based on probable odds. In retrospect, it’s what I was trying to say in this cartoon, back in January of 2003. If there was a one percent chance that the moon might crash into the earth someday, we would, as rational people, respond differently than if the odds were at one hundred percent, or even fifty percent. We would monitor the problem, consider options. We would not make it the single most pressing issue of the day.
You would have to be literally insane to suggest blowing up the moon immediately because there was a one percent chance that it might crash into the earth someday.
But as Suskind tells it, this is what the entire Iraq War has been about. All the tragedy, all the blood spilled, all the ensuing chaos — all because there was a one percent chance that Saddam might help terrorists someday.
