So, considered the reality of the situation, it is difficult for anyone to swallow the meme of "leave my children alone" that Palin trots out each and every time someone makes a comment about her using her kids as set-dressing.
Now the Obama's are getting a taste of this from conservatives. And this time, it is completely without warrant and shows not only the very real racist component that has resided within many corners of the conservative movement for generations, but the rank hypocrisy that threads itself through nearly every facet of their ideology.
The conservative blog Free Republic posted this pic of Malia Obama and asked commentors to give their thoughts.
this is what happened:
A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
And this is coming from the same people that decried any mention of Sarah Palin's children.
While it should be pointed out that there were ( and probably still are ) the fringe members of the liberal / progressive movement that believe that Bristol Palin is the real mother of Sarah's child Trig, that meme was mainstreamed by people like Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, and conservative talk radio. Not that they advocated the theory, but they made it out to be a much larger, more pluralized, opinion than it every was or will be.
The comments directed toward Sarah Palin's diabled child were swiftly denounced by the Left but the conservative movement is still trying to keep that story alive. Truth-be-told, it is the only example ( save David Letterman's comedic riff ) that can be construed as an "attack" or a "smear" on the Palin family.
So what do other bloggers have to say about this?
BlueGal @ Crooks And Liars has a point that dovetails with mine.
Anyone who has ever blogged knows that there are the occasional commenters who post things that embarrass us. If a blog in question has a commenting policy that forbids racist, abusive, violent, or otherwise inappropriate comments, we at Crooks and Liars don't make an issue of it if, on a blog we disagree with, some commenter slips through their gate with a comment that violates those policies.
We also know that some right-wing blogs, namely Michelle Malkin and her Hot Air brigade, run through our comment threads regularly looking for comments that might embarrass us. That's not the reason for our policy, we simply have standards.
When this Free Republic "spokesman" is given an opportunity to distance himself and the blog from some ridiculous comments that he and the blog were not initially responsible for, he instead uses his fifteen seconds of fame to exclaim that the left wing blogs "have no standards." Really.
And I agree with BG - there isn't a blog around that is going to be able to prevent all the idiocy that gets put up on their stie. This is a concept that Bill O'Reilly struggles with even today.
But when Free Republic spokesperson Kristinn Stewart was given the opportunity to state that these comments were offensive and out of line he decided that he would lambast liberal / progressive blogs for "not having standards".
Shuster is correct - this and what people are saying about Sarah Palin or her children is completely different.
But, such is the slippery slope of free-speech. And that is the ultimate argument that will be waged by the far-right - it is their right to free speech to say these things. It's becoming increasingly more and more apparent that the far-right conservatives within the Republican party can't seperate blatant hate-speech from criticism.
Having grown up in a part of the US where abject hatred towards not only blacks but any ethnicity other than "white" is acceptable - and apparently passed down as tradition - I have become somewhat numb to the racial epithets that I have to hear on virtually a daily basis. But this is simply beyond the pale.
No comments:
Post a Comment