New Age guru Deepak Chopra is in a Right Wing media shitstorm for his ("unpatriotic/unAmerican") remarks on the Mumbai attacks.
Deepak Chopra has been criticized by the scientific and the atheist community on the Left for years. The term moonbat has been used liberally by both the winnuts(creationist crackpots et al for his "secular/spiritual/anti-religious-fundamentalist" views) on the Right and the rationalist types(See PZ Myers and Orac at Scienceblogs, for his "pseudo-scientific" views) on the Left.
When it comes to his political positions, he is an ultra liberal by any standards. (May be more "liberal" than Michael Moore?) Anyway, he has been in the media limelight, during the long election campaign, on CNN enthusiastically advocating for Obama. He was a frequent guest on Fox News as well, speaking about his new book on Jesus and about Obama and the world in general. During the Mumbai attacks, he was on CNN interviewed by Larry King and other hosts, and he made some "startling" (a little too honest)remarks about America and The War on Terror.
Jane Hamsher at firedoglake writes:
It appears Deepak Chopra got a little too honest for CNN, and they cut him off as he accuses the US of funding both sides of the War on Terror: ...
And lo, the wingnuts (Red State, Free Republic, No Quarter, Gateway Pundit to name a few) went crazy.
Related Discussion here:
Deepak Chopra-Larry King transcript
CNN: Chopra: Attack prompts tough questions
Michelle Haimoff, HuffPo
Deepak Chopra on Mumbai: Too Controversial for CNN?
marc moore, PoliGazzette
Barack Obama’s Priorities
In comes the Right's big gun Wall Street Journal with an editorial attacking Deepak Chopra.
And the Chopras respond:
From Chopra's community blog, Intent.com:
Deepak Chopra:
Deepak Chopra: Response to the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article critical on some comments that I made on CNN and at the same time made some derogatory and personal attacks. Both I and my son, Gotham Chopra, responded and Wall Street Journal has agreed to publish our responses this Friday. In the meanwhile, we are posting our responses in our entirety here.[...] Read on...
Gotham Chopra:
Gotham Chopra: My Response to the Wall Street Journal
As many already know, my father Deepak Chopra (along with thousands of others) has taken a vow of non-violence in all his actions and words. As a result, he's unable to respond that aggressively to an article written by Dorothy Rabinowitz in Monday's Wall Street Journal critical of his response on CNN and elsewhere to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Fortunately, I haven't taken the vow.
In her opinion piece, Ms. Rabinowitz charges that Deepak has over-simplified the issue of global terrorism. How ironic considering the profound over-simplification of her article (not to mention the recklessness of it) entitled DEEPAK BLAMES AMERICA. [...]Read on...
I guess, this part says it all:
Dorothy Rabinowitz, for example is an incredibly accomplished journalist and certainly someone with the intellectual capacity to understand the complexity of the issues if she wanted to. And yet instead of writing a thoughtful piece on the Mumbai attacks, she and the WSJ choose to publish a salacious article under the heading of DEEPAK BLAMES AMERICA which clearly is all about generating controversy and news. They were successful in creating publicity over this imaginary story-considering all the subsequent coverage, including my father's appearance Monday night on the Fox News show Hannity and Colmes in which the article was cited (both Fox News and the WSJ, of course, are owned by News Corp/Rupert Murdoch...another story for another day). Of course, ultimately the real goal of the media, news networks included, is more viewers, more readers, and more buzz. The consequence is that it fuels a public that wants simple three-word headlines and analysis that doesn't rely on understanding the history or context in which events occur. It's a brave new world for media everywhere because someone is always watching and blogging.