Cowards and conservatives: Much ridiculous ado about Ron Schiller, NPR, and James O'Keefe's latest right-wing scam

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There has been much ado today -- I'm late coming to this, but I haven't been feeling well -- about NPR being caught in yet another gotcha sting by right-wing activist James O'Keefe and his ironically-named Project Veritas.

Basically, if you haven't heard the details yet, NPR executives Ron Schiller and Betsy Liley had lunch with two men posing as representatives of the so-called Muslim Education Action Center Trust, a fictitious philanthropic organization backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The group, the two men said, wanted to give $5 million to NPR because, they said, "the Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere." During the lunch, Schiller went off on Republicans and conservatives, saying, for example:

-- "The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move."

-- On the Tea Party: "It's not just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

That's about it. O'Keefe got it all on video, and now the story's flying around the Internet, with the anti-NPR ire of the right ramped up to new levels of vitriol.

Let me address the above comments first:

-- The Republican Party is indeed socially conservative and deeply theocratic. On the whole, it seeks to impose right-wing, fundamentalist Christian "values" on the country. One might object to Schiller's assertion that such evangelical fundamentalism isn't "Christian," but Schiller is right.

-- Schiller does somewhat misrepresent the Tea Party. While there are indeed racist elements in it, it is for the most part an anti-tax, anti-government, hyper-libertarian movement.

Undeniably, there are xenophobic and anti-Muslim strains in the Republican Party, significant if not dominant strains, but they are to be found more among the paleo-conservatives (and some neoconservatives), as well as within the party "establishment," not really, or at least not exclusively, among the Tea Partiers. (Rand Paul isn't really the problem here, it's more the likes of fear- and hatemongers like Pete King.) Still, the Tea Party is overwhelmingly white, pro-gun, and "middle" American. It may not be as racist as Schiller suggests, but it's certainly scary.

Okay, so what else did Schiller say?

-- "What NPR did I'm very proud of. What NPR stood for is a non-racist, non-bigoted, straightforward telling of the news. Our feeling is that if a person expresses his or her personal opinion, which anyone is entitled to do in a free society, they are compromised as a journalist. They can no longer fairly report. And the question we asked internally was, can Juan Williams, when he makes a statement like that, can he report to the Muslim population, and be believed, for example? And the answer is no. He lost all credibility and that breaks your ethics as a journalist."

I didn't necessarily think Williams should have been fired on the grounds that what he said crossed the line -- though I certainly would have supported firing him for his long record of being a shoddy pundit -- but it's not like Schiller said anything outrageous in defending NPR's decision.

-- "I think what we all believe is if we don't have Muslim voices in our schools, on the air... it's the same thing we faced as a nation when we didn't have female voices."

And? There is widespread anti-Muslim bigotry in America right now, most of it stoked and espoused by the right, and there should indeed be "Muslim voices in our schools." That doesn't mean that "our schools" should be Muslim, though conservatives are also stoking fears of a Muslim takeover and the imposition of Sharia law, just that Muslims in America are part of the American fabric.

-- NPR "would be better off in the long run without federal funding."

This was perhaps the most controversial thing he said, but only because it contradicts NPR's official position. If it's just his opinion, so what? He should have avoided talking corporate policy, and shouldn't have spoken for NPR given his dissenting view, but that's an error of judgement, nothing more.

So can we move on? Conservatives will make a big deal of this, but they were already anti-NPR, and, as far as I'm concerned, Schiller's remarks don't amount to much.

Well, let's address a few points first:

-- NPR has commented officially on the matter already:

The fraudulent organization represented in this video repeatedly pressed us to accept a $5 million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept.

We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.

Mr. Schiller announced last week that he is leaving NPR for another job.

In other words, NPR was not about to take the money, quickly distanced itself from Schiller's remarks (going so far as to call them appalling), and further distanced itself from Schiller, who had already announced that he was leaving NPR to take a job elsewhere.

-- I am actually somewhat appalled the NPR called Schiller's remarks appalling. Again, is what he said really so bad, so outrageous? Fox News people, including on-air personalities, say far worse all the time. NPR has different (i.e., higher) standards, obviously, but it seems to me that NPR is going too far the other way, trying to defend itself from any and all possible association with partisanship. And for what? For the small amount NPR takes in federal funding every year?

-- NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation) said Schiller's remarks were "deeply distressing to reporters, editors and others who bring fairness, civility and respect for a wide variety of viewpoints to their work every day." They may have been, and may still be -- how should I know? -- but Schiller was a fundraiser and was not involved with NPR content. So it's not like it was an editor or reporter, or executive responsible for such matters, was caught saying such partisan things.

-- Schiller himself has already apologized:

While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs. I offer my sincere apology to those I offended. I resigned from NPR, previously effective May 6th, to accept another job. In an effort to put this unfortunate matter behind us, NPR and I have agreed that my resignation is effective today.

Again, why this embarrassing self-flagellation? Were his remarks really "not reflective" of his "own beliefs"? So what? And whom exactly did he offend? Republicans? Tea Partiers? Anti-Muslim bigots? Why does he need to apologize to them? Perhaps he should have apologized to NPR to openly objecting to corporate policy, at least in terms of federal funding, and perhaps he should have admitted that he spoke too freely, but more than that was hardly necessary.

And yet here he is, along with NPR itself, issuing one big mea culpa while conservatives point fingers, sneer, and gloat.

Please. Does he have no self-respect? Does NPR have no self-respect? Do we liberals have no self-respect?

I'm sick and fucking tired of the double standard. Conservatives can say whatever the hell they want, going so far as to promote extremist views on every media channel they can get hold of, but liberals have to bend over backwards to apologize for even the slightest hint of bias. It's truly and utterly pathetic.

And, in this case, it's coming from a guy who was already on the way out! (And a cowardly NPR just kicked him out the door sooner.)

-- As John Cole puts it in his usual blunt way: "The latest scoop from the wingnutosphere is that some former NPR fundraiser thinks that the teahadists are nuts and that the GOP has been hijacked by crazy people. This is being spun as some grave sin, when in reality it should be met with a resounding -- 'No shit.'"

My thought exactly.

The narcissism of Small Differences

By Capt. Fogg

Another day, another triumph for malignant stupidity. I have a filter on my e-mail program that deletes most anything that mentions the President. Odds are it's more crap about finding proof that Obama is a Muslim, whether it's in goat entrails, the arrangement of the stars, some spliced together video or some total fabrication by one of Fox's Friends.

I may add filters for the words Mosque, Muslim and Islam as well because like the voices in the madman's head, mad America sees Muslims everywhere and hates them: in any curved line -- even in NASA mission patches and most of all in buildings with Domes. You know those round arches found at St. Peters, on many Orthodox basilicas and even that cathedral of Democracy, the US Capitol building. If it curves like the new moon, like the orbit of an electron, the path of a rocket: if it has a dome, it's Muslim and it's evil.

Take The Light of the World multidenominational church outside Phoenix, Arizona. All truth, decency and sanity notwithstanding the mad morons of America want you to think it's a mosque and for no other reason that it's domed. Looks to the Demented Idiots of Arizona like a Mosque - must be a center of America-hating Islamic Jihad.

In response, there's a banner now waving at the construction site:

"If you think we are different you are wrong, we are building a Christian house of prayer."

Isn't that part of the problem? Are Muslims "Different?" What about Jews, Mormons, Secular Humanists, Buddhists, Hindus, Unitarians, Freemasons? DIFFERENT! BE AFRAID!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Oklahoma is OK

By Capt. Fogg

Says the tautological and largely meaningless slogan on their license plates. No, Oklahoma isn't an Apache word for xenophobia, but it may well become an English metaphor, and it certainly isn't OK with regard to having a clue about the consequences of their actions.

Yes, the strict constitutionalist nativists of the Southwest would love to be able to pick and choose what part of that document they feel comfortable with and ignore other parts that suggest that Oklahoma cannot set requirements for U.S. citizenship all by itself nor can neighboring Arizona forbid certain kinds of employment to those with an accent that doesn't suggest Aryan Abstammung, even though they did.

They're apparently also stupid enough to fear that Oklahoma judges will decide to opt out of federal, state, and local law and enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, since so many of them are Islamic fundamentalists in disguise or likely to spontaneously become one. You know, like some people just burst into flames or get abducted by aliens. You really can't trust any judge not to decide to enforce Liechtenstein law or that of France or Andorra, you know, and so they voted for the Save Our State amendment.

It may just work. It may save Oklahoma's free thinkers, Buddhists, Hindus and adherents to Native religions from being beat over the head with selected Jewish laws in the name of being a Christian nation. Sorry Tea folk, when you ban the courts from referencing "laws of another nation" that didn't apply in the first place, you ban the Ten Commandments as well as the other 603 Biblical laws you're not literate enough to know about. Mount Sinai wasn't just outside Muskogee, you know and Israel remains a foreign country.

Just as Sharia is binding only on Muslims, Jewish Mitzvot are only binding on Jews and if any are enforced in the courts, it's coincidental. Muslims have laws against murder and theft too, you know and some of theirs seem more liberal than ours. Sometimes ignorance opens the door to enlightenment.

Of course these landlocked Okies have forgotten that treaties the U.S. government enters into with foreign entities do have the force of law ( unless those treaties were made with the various Indian tribes without the slightest intention of good faith ) and so refusing to enforce them is unconstitutional and not good for international business, if there is any in Oklahoma.

Just can't win, can ya? So thanks for standing up for the first amendment, cowboy -- maybe you really are OK.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Another final solution?

By Capt. Fogg

During WW II the Germans were the bad guys and the French were the good guys, right? Well, some of them certainly were and some of them certainly still are, but if we're looking for another example of the banality -- and universality -- of the hidden but still present nastiness in apparently civilized nations, the examples are everywhere. Examples of the kinds of sentiments that brought us the persecutions, deportations and atrocities my parents' generation went to war over.

No, I'm not talking about the increasingly hostile attitude toward non-aryan immigrants in the American South, but about France and the European Union of which it's part. The Nazis ( and the Inquisition in its time) were less successful in eliminating the Roma, or the Gypsies as it was once more common to call them, then they were in eliminating the Jews or Europe.

Now that travel within the EU has been made so much easier; a basic right of European citizens, France has many Romani camps and that bothers many Frenchmen who are eager to attribute all kinds of mayhem in good old Lou Dobbs fashion. French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems happy to raise his poor ratings by pandering to that good old European Family Value of racism and ethnic prejudice. He plans to break up some 300 camps in the near future and send the Roma back to Romania because of "security problems." As yet, I haven't heard talk about re-establishing them in their ancient homeland in Rajasthan, but maybe that's still too touchy a subject just now.

France isn't the first to expel this wandering group who have appeared as bogey men in a thousand years of European folk lore. Germany Denmark and Italy, for example are instituting similar policies of attributing selected offenses to a group and punishing that group with expulsion rather than individuals actually accused and found guilty. It's doubly disturbing because, of course, Romanian citizens are normally free to reside in EU countries, or so I'm told.

Perhaps enough time has passed that the embarrassment of being caught at the same old Collective Guilt by Ethnicity game isn't enough to make EU member countries circumspect. Certainly that's true in the US where most citizens can't clearly remember as far back as the Bush administration, but equally certain is that looking for ethnic scapegoats in times of economic trouble is not something that died in a Berlin bunker in 1945.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Not brilliant!

By J. Thomas Duffy

Holy Chuck Cooper, Batman, is this guy dribbling without the ball?

A Birther basketball league?

Basketball league for white Americans targets Augusta

A new professional basketball league boasting rosters made up exclusively of white Americans has its eyes set on Augusta, but the team isn't receiving a warm welcome.

"Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league," the statement said.

[snip]

Don "Moose" Lewis, the commissioner of the AABA, said the reasoning behind the league's roster restrictions is not racism.

"There's nothing hatred about what we're doing," he said. "I don't hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here's a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like."

Lewis said he wants to emphasize fundamental basketball instead of "street-ball" played by "people of color." He pointed out recent incidents in the NBA, including Gilbert Arenas' indefinite suspension after bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room, as examples of fans' dissatisfaction with the way current professional sports are run.

"Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?" he said. "That's the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction."

Hey, Don Moose Brains, this movie has already been made!

Like 24-years ago: Hoosiers!

Your deal doesn't sound anything like Hoosiers.

Hoosiers was about redemption and was loosely based on a real event.

Your deal sounds very much like xenophobic racism.

And, regular readers may be wondering, why aren't we rolling out the "Ignorant Dolt" carpet for this?

The reason is, we wouldn't want to sully our dubious Hall of Shame with the likes this cretin.

He goes way, way beyond being an Ignorant Dolt.




(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Rivera and Stossel on Dobbs: When even the crazy think you're crazy, you must be seriously crazy.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know you're a crazy extremist when even Geraldo Rivera and John Stossel are calling you out. And that's precisely what's happened to Lou Dobbs, as Think Progress is reporting.

Lou Dobbs is almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country,

said Rivera, without exaggerating all that much (because, clearly, Dobbs isn't alone in his thinking). For his part, Stossel said he doesn't "subscribe to Lou Dobbs-kind of rants about immigrants wrecking America."

And Rivera is actively campaigning against Fox News, his network, hiring Dobbs away from CNN. I can't quite believe I'm about to write this, but... Well done, Geraldo Rivera! Keep it up!

Which is not to say I care about Fox News. I don't -- well, I care only insofar as I loathe it. And I suppose I'd much rather see Dobbs at Fox News than at CNN. Not that I care much about CNN either, I just think Dobbs at Fox is more fitting than Dobbs at CNN, which at least pretends to be, and on occasion tries to be, a real news network. Of course, Dobbs fashions himself an independent, which would seem to distance him from the overtly partisan Fox News. Plus, CNN is sort of independent, and so in that sense a more suitable home for him. But let's not kid ourselves. Dobbs may not subscribe to the love of the unfettered free market that motivates many on the right, but his politics are nothing if not rightist. Then again, so are Pat Buchanan's, and he's at MSNBC, much to the shame of all things peacockian.

So whatever. The point is that Dobbs is a despicable figure. Even Rivera and Stossel know it. And that's saying something.

Glenn Beck is a nativist asshole

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Okay, I know what you're thinking: why the qualifier? Beck isn't just a nativist asshole, he's an asshole period. Which is to say, his assholery is essential to his being.

And, you know what? You're right. And I've previously said precisely that.

What I want to look at here, however, is the specifically nativist component of his assholery. For what a significant component it is.

Here's one of his latest public outbursts of nativism, courtesy of Think Progress:

Discussing [Wednesday] night's GOP debate on his radio show [yesterday], Glenn Beck and fill-in host Pat Gray mocked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by derisively calling him "Juan McCain." Beck, who considers McCain's sponsorship of a comprehensive immigration bill and the Mexican background of his national director of Hispanic outreach to be "an audacious slap in the face to the American people," proudly advertised the segment in his daily e-mail to listeners [yesterday].

And there's more. Read the full TP post.

As much as I dislike McCain, even if I have a bit of a soft spot for him, he doesn't deserve this sort of abuse. But of course he's viciously loathed by many on the right -- including Hugh Hewitt (who thinks he'd destroy "the Reagan Coalition," even though, in truth, he's stridently conservative) and Ann Coulter (who, believe it or not, has gone so far as to say she prefers Hillary over McCain, just like Michelle Malkin) -- and he's one of the few Republicans with (relatively) sensible views on illegal immigration.

In other words, with McCain now the frontrunner, and looking more and more like the GOP nominee-to-be, this is what we can expect not just from assholes like Beck but from the wide swath of purificationist ideologues on the right generally, those purge-leading neo-Stalinists of the conservative movement.

I would just remind you that Beck is on CNN, the network that gives Lou Dobbs an even more prominent platform from which to spew his nativist populism.

"The Most Trusted Name in News"? -- I think not.

The sound of xenophobia

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's an excellent article on Switzerland at The Independent. Make sure to read it all, but here's the summary:

Switzerland is known as a haven of peace and neutrality. But today it is home to a new extremism that has alarmed the United Nations. Proposals for draconian new laws that target the country's immigrants have been condemned as unjust and racist. A poster campaign, the work of its leading political party, is decried as xenophobic. Has Switzerland become Europe's heart of darkness?

According to the U.N., the poster in question is "the sinister symbol of the rise of a new racism and xenophobia in the heart of one of the world's oldest independent democracies". Immigration and xenophobia will no doubt be key issues leading up to the general election next month.

**********

In related news, it is being reported that Mitt Romney is planning a two-day fact-finding mission to Berne next week, a break from the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire. Rudy Giuliani, who has been showing a softer, un-Republican side, at least on the issue of illegal immigration, has been denied entry into Switzerland, according to a high-ranking government source, but Tom Tancredo and a delegation of Republican congressmen will accompany Romney. Tancredo himself has called Switzerland "Europe's ideal," and there have been rumours that, while there, he will apply for residency in exchange for advising the Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei) during the upcoming campaign.

**********

In related related news, Zurich and Denver are planning to become twin cities, with cultural and political exchanges coming as early as next summer, just in time for the 2008 elections.