Olbermann's Problem With Free Speech
Leave it to a whiny shitbag like Keith Olbermann to try to turn the unfortunate Don Imus situation into a platform to launch attacks on all other conservative talk show hosts. From the transcript of his April 11 broadcast:
OLBERMANN: Relative to not music but news, entertainment, and the idea that Don Imus was not alone among those who have made remarks like this, let me go through a few names and then ask you a question in terms of momentum, in terms of fairness.
Comments by people like Rush Limbaugh, who calls Senator Barack Obama and actress Halle Berry, quote, “halfrican-Americans.” Michael Savage, who asked whether the Voting Right Acts intended to counteract racial discrimination at the ballot box was trying to, quote, “put a chad in every crack house.” There‘s Neil Boortz, the other radio talker, who said the black congressman Cynthia McKinney looked, quote, “like a ghetto slut.” Glenn Beck from CNN and ABC, who referred to the largely African-American survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans as, quote, “scumbags,” and who, when he interviewed the Black Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, from Minnesota, said he felt like saying to him, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”
Do I really need to dig up Olbermann or other left-wing talkers (a dying breed) offensive quotes to point out that he singled out these folks?
It was a failed joke in poor taste. And now it's being used as a starting point for a jihad against others. Typical.
12 comments:
Um, actually, yes, you do. I'll take one Olbermann quote that's on the level of "Prove to me that you're not working with our enemies."
Hey, dumbass, that was said by Beck Which you would know if you had seen the broadcast...but don't let the facts derail you.
As to Olbermann quotes....just wait.
Whoops. Said IN JEST. Somehow the IN JEST part after Becks' name got wiped.
You want it? You got it. Let's see...how does this gem compare to Imus' nappy-headed hos comment:
Olbermann, August 18, 1998: "Can Ken Starr ignore the apparent breadth of the sympathetic response to the President's speech? Facially, it finally dawned on me that the person Ken Starr has reminded me of facially all this time was Heinrich Himmler, including the glasses."
So....? Care to retract? Or is comparing someone to fucking NAZIS acceptable to you?
Some people actually merit comparisons to Nazis. Some don't. Considering what was going on at the time, the comparison is fair, IMO.
What? What???? How is it OK to use a slur in one case and not another???
Because sometimes it's really true! If Ken Starr had a physical resemblence to a Nazi, it's just an observation, not a slur.
Bullshit. It's a slur. You cannot allow one insulting comparison and decry another. Just because it doesn't bother you subjectively doesn't make it right. Either both Imus and Olbermann should get a pass on the free speech merits or both should get hoisted on their petards. I vote the former.
Gonz, you're forgetting one tiny little detail.
Nazi is a choice.
Skin color isn't.
Garrett, true but it doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't pick and choose offenses.
What, you don't see any difference between:
"Fucking Nazi!"
and
"Fucking Nigger!"
Picking and choosing offenses is a long and honorable(?) tradition in this country....
Not really, no I don't see much difference. I don't like either.
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