Today was another one of those days where it is clear that the rode ahead for true progressives will indeed be - as Kos predicted before the election – difficult. The example came in the form of two separate TV clips that prove, yet again, that the media in America isn't liberal (as is constantly screeched by the right). And no, it didn't have anything to do with Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.
It started in the morning when Pat Buchanan suggested on Morning Joe that Todd Palin should kill Levi Johnston by taking him to the river and drowning him. Did Mika Brzezinski and the other co-hosts shudder in horror at such a disgusting suggestion? Nope; they simply laughed and got a good old-fashioned chuckle about holding someone under water until he’s dead.
Later in the afternoon Marcy Wheeler from Firedoglake was on David Shuster’s daytime show and mentioned the words “blow job” in the context of the right’s enormous hypocrisy for impeaching Clinton over a hummer but not wanting any accountability for the Bush/Cheney administration lying us to war on false pretenses, torturing captured soldiers, spying on American citizens without warrants, and keeping the Congress in the dark about a covert assassination squad.
Watch those two clips here and here, and then ask yourself: if the media truly was liberal, which two comments would elicit the harshest condemnation from the hosts?
David Shuster is arguably the most progressive media personality on cable television, yet he apologized profusely for Wheeler’s comments, as did Shuster’s co-host.
Meanwhile, over at at Morning Joe, the best that Brzezinski could come up with at the end of the segment where Buchanan made his outrageous suggestion, was to give a lame “no one at MSNBC condones any acts of violence against Levi Johnston” while she, Buchanan and the other co-hosts can be seen and heard laughing during Brzezinski’s half-hearted apology.
If the media were indeed as liberal as the hyper right likes to believe, the reaction would have been the exact opposite. The co-hosts would have laughed at the fellatio comment but would have been aghast at the notion of a pundit suggesting someone should be murdered for embarrassing Sarah Palin.
The two clips show just how screwed up America is when it comes to the issues of sex and violence. Talking about killing someone can be considered a humorous joke but talking about consensual sex is absolutely verboten.
But we’ll leave that psycho-analysis for the professionals.
(cross-posted at abcparty.org ‘Anyone But Conservatives’)