Comments | purchasemonkey: The fun continues (politics)

purchasemonkey

The fun continues (politics)

Mar 22, 2010 14:14

Yet more of the right wing shooting itself in the foot:
Protesters hurl slurs and spit at Democrats.
Remember how the hippie assholes of the 60's are held up as objects of ridicule (and rightly so) for spitting on soldiers and calling them "baby killers" during the Vietnam War? Yeah. That.

rant, politics

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palecur March 22 2010, 21:21:02 UTC

These events are swarming with cameras and video recording devices, yet there's no footage anywhere to back up the claims. Given the established rhetoric of couching any opposition to the Administration's policies as being motivated by racism, you'll understand if I remain skeptical about the claims until some sort of substantiation happens.

merlinofchaos March 22 2010, 22:20:06 UTC

Is remaining skeptical of the claims the same as calling 4 members of Congress and an unnamed CNN producer liars? Or rather, "Liars until you show me film?"

Not that I ever really trust politicians, mind you, but I've certainly seen enough vehemence over this whole affair to find it completely believable.

palecur March 22 2010, 22:58:13 UTC

I'm tolerably comfortable with folks calling politicians and newsflacks liars, especially when lying is to their advantage, but that's not what I'm doing here, no.

On an unrelated note, I hear donut holes are delicious this season.

terpsichoros March 22 2010, 23:08:12 UTC

I believe the congresscritters and CNN are lying.

I also beelive that if substantiation is found, that the spitter will turn out to be a plant. There's already a two false-flag "Tea Party" efforts underway, it would not surprise me in the least if some leftoid decided to spit on some congresscritters to create bad publicity for the Tea Party movement.

Wow... purchasemonkey March 22 2010, 23:14:39 UTC

...I really don't know what to say. I find it hard to believe that you'd rather credit a large conspiracy of journalists at CNN (and possibly of Congressional representative and their aides) than just more craziness the likes of which we've seen at Tea Party rallies in the past.

I don't go in for conspiracies, because our government seems to be so consistently bad at them; it seems like someone always talks. I'm perfectly willing to believe that leftists do awful things....

Re: Wow... terpsichoros March 22 2010, 23:27:55 UTC

I'm willing to believe that ethically-challenged congressmen (and a single CNN employee) will hear what they want to hear, regardless of what was actually said.

I'm not willing to believe, as Congresscritter Lewis states, that this is the worst it's been in 40 years. I'm sure he's lying about that; that makes me suspect that he just made up the rest.

ETA: This does not require much of a conspiracy. Three or four people who've made careers out of ferreting out intolerance and blaming it on their opponents claim that they heard something, and there's no video. Everyone else is just repeating the story.

Except that there is a video of some of the event, and that video doesn't show any racial or homophobic slurs, or any spitting.

Re: Wow... terpsichoros April 2 2010, 19:47:42 UTC

I was right. The Congressman was lying.

Re: Wow... purchasemonkey April 14 2010, 08:50:42 UTC

So, to apply the same standards you do: can you find a version of this story which is not reported in the right-wing media? I couldn't. I tried searching at Google for Cleaver's name, spitting, etc. and the only links I found were to a Fox News story simply calling the claims into question without citation. The link is no longer active, and I'm not familiar enough with the site in question to know how it archives its stories (I can't find the story by searching)....

Re: Wow... terpsichoros April 29 2010, 00:59:34 UTC

THe source disappeared on me, but this article, in the decidedly-not-right-wing CS Monitor, says "Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D) of Missouri, who was also in the group, at first said a protester spit on him, but later clarified that the protester had allowed spittle to fly in his direction while yelling."

If you look at the video, that all happened when Cleaver went out of his way to get in the protester's face, rather than just walking where he was going.

(The comment has been removed)

terpsichoros March 23 2010, 00:24:24 UTC

I've listened to Rush Limbaugh.

I have never heard anything racist on his show. I have heard him making fun of the race-grievance industry, and race-hustling politicians, but that's not racist.

This is not a "complex conspiracy". It's a hive mind at work, and not working very hard at that. There are fewer than six people who claim to have witnessed what was reported, possibly as few as three. I can easily believe that three (or five) people whose careers depend on scaring their constituents with the "racist" bogeyman might have decided that a bunch of people angry with them must have shouted something racist, then going to press with that. I particularly suspect the one who didn't say anything until later of making it all up, so he could horn in on the publicity.

chrisfs March 25 2010, 18:21:57 UTC

So do you think the GOP leader Cantor is lying about his report? Will you be waiting for video proof of someone shooting the window or simply a photograph?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/25/congress.threats/?hpt=T1

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