On September 8, Jeffrey Feldman alerted Kos readers to the hate-filled drivel spewed by David Brooks on PBS, where Brooks equated "lefty blogs" with those who support Osama bin Laden. Today, I received a boilerplate "apology" from the PBS ombudsman, Michael Getler, in my e-mail.
Here's the "apology."
Dear Mr. Black:
Here is the response from the NewsHour:
Dear NewsHour Viewer,
We have received many complaints, much of it organized by The Daily Kos and other blogs, about David Brooks' comments on the NewsHour last Friday, Sept.7. Many people seem to think David Brooks brought up linguist Noam Chomsky of his own volition, and maligned him and everyone who identifies with "lefty bloggers" by comparing them to Osama Bin Laden.
For the record, here is some of what OBL said on his recently released video tape: "This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice."
The full transcript can be found here:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/...
Prior to the Shields and Brooks segment on the 9/7 NewsHour broadcast, Judy Woodruff moderated a discussion of the OBL tape with Mid-east and security experts Bruce Hoffman and Mohammed Hafez. During that conversation, Mr. Hafez made reference to Noam Chomsky as well. (see complete transcript at http://www.pbs.org/... ).
David Brook's comment on Chomsky was in response to Osama bin Laden's statement and followed the comment of Mr. Hafez. For the record, here is a complete transcript of the Brooks and Shields comments regarding the OBL tape:
JIM LEHRER: Mark, first, have a thought about the new bin Laden tape?
MARK SHIELDS: I guess only after listening to Judy's discussion, two things hit me. One, there were no overt threats in it to the United States. And two, it was quite self-indulgent, I thought, on his part, I mean, in that sense. It obviously was made rather recently, too.
JIM LEHRER: Scary in any way?
DAVID BROOKS: No, ludicrous. I mean, on one hand, he's a
malevolent guy who killed 3,000 Americans. But you read this thing, and it's like he's been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and he's one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom of the page, you know, Noam Chomsky and all this stuff. You can't help read it and not laugh at it, occasionally, because it is just absurd. It's flying this way, and that way, weird conspiracy theories, and mortgages, global warming. He throws it all in there. The one thing that leapt out - and Bruce Hoffman and the others mentioned this - was how Western it is. And a friend of mine, Reuel
Gerecht, points out that there's this argument that Western ideas never permeated into the Arab world, but in fact it's all - I mean, a lot of the worst ideas from the West have permeated in, and he's picked up Noam Chomsky, and he's picked up some of the anti-globalization stuff. And that's what infuses this.
JIM LEHRER: Do you expect it to have any impact at all on the American public or the American debate on Iraq coming with the Petraeus report, et cetera?
MARK SHIELDS: No, I really don't.
JIM LEHRER: OK. (discussion moves to the next topic)
If anyone owes you an apology, it's The NewsHour, for failing to make it clear that Bin Laden's comments included references to Chomsky, high taxes, a recent book about President Bush, the Democratic and Republican positions on the Iraq War, and other names and issues that indicated his familiarity with current events in the West. Given how many people misread David's comments, we should have re-emphasized that point.
Thanks for your comments regarding The NewsHour.
(Sorry if there are formatting errors that make their response look wonky. I reformatted it from my e-mail, and I bet it didn't work 100%.)
In short, "Gee, we're sorry you didn't understand what Brooks was saying. Obviously you don't know anything unless we tell it to you, therefore you didn't know anything about the context of Brooks's remarks. Now that you know all of this, you can stop misreading David's remarks and get back to joining the cheerleading efforts for Bush and the Iraq war. Have a nice day, why don'tcha?"
Here's my response:
For the record, I didn't mention Chomsky in my
response. I knew bin Laden referenced Chomsky -- I am familiar with what Chomsky said, contrary to your apparent belief that I know nothing except what your network tells me -- but I wasn't responding to Brooks's slaps at that individual. I don't necessarily align myself with Chomsky. I do align myself with the majority of Americans who do not support this war, and I do align myself with the millions of thoughtful, patriotic Americans who take an active part in the political discussion going on in this country. I didn't "misread" Brooks's comments. He specifically equated so-called "lefty blogs" with bin Laden and expressly implied that leftists such as myself support bin Laden. By extension, Brooks implied that anyone who disagrees with the war in Iraq is a bin Laden supporter. As I noted, Brooks's comments were one element of a larger, well-orchestrated effort by the right wing to spread that message -- dissent equals terrorist support equals treason -- and by letting him air his views without a challenge, you became part of that effort. I castigated you in my original response for joining the right-wing noise machine. You have affirmed that position with your arrogant, insulting "apology:" "We're sorry you didn't understand what Brooks was talking about." Screw you, buddy. We'll save the country without you. And PBS will never get another dime of my money.
Who do you think has been supporting PBS all these many years? Progressives. Fuck PBS, if it's becoming another element of the Mighty Wurlitzer, they can do it without my contributions.
(edited to fix URL formatting wonkiness)