It’s OK To Hurl Slurs If You’re A Lefty
April 28, 2018 at 2:07 a.m.
By Gary [email protected]
She has joined legions of other TV personalities who have created a cottage industry of Trump bashing in this country. This is not to say that Trump doesn’t give them plenty of ammunition. He does.
But the thing is, hosts like Reid say some pretty stupid things, too. Problem is, there are very few people in the mainstream willing to hold them to account for it.
Reid’s show on the weekend, “AM Joy,” is doing quite well. According to Forbes in the end of March, “With an average total audience of 1.287 million, AM Joy easily outpaced CNN (838,000) for the quarter, the third straight with a total audience of more than a million viewers. Among viewers 25-54, the demographic coveted by advertisers, AM Joy took its first victory over CNN, with 265,000 viewers to CNN's 244,000.”
So she’s kind of a big deal.
I’m not saying she’s as big a deal as the president of the United States or deserves the same level of scrutiny, but when a public figure says dumb things, I think he or she should be held to account. It’s news.
Unfortunately, you have to dig pretty deep to find any mention of Reid’s foibles.
Examples abound.
Here’s what she tweeted during the State of the Union speech:
Church ... family ... police ... military ... the national anthem ... Trump trying to call on all the tropes of 1950s-era nationalism. The goal of this speech appears to be to force the normalization of Trump on the terms of the bygone era his supporters are nostalgic for. #SOTU
Frankly, for Reid, this was fairly mild. But I can just hear CNN’s Jake Tapper skewering the poor hapless conservative who dared to characterize church, family, police, military and the national anthem as “tropes of the 1950s.”
More recently a bunch of anti-gay rants from 2007 and 2009 made it into the mainstream. She pretty much ridiculed then-Florida Gov. Charlie Christ with anti-gay slurs like refering him to “Miss Charlie.” (It was widely rumored in the press he, though married, was gay.) She said he’d be “ogling male waiters” during his honeymoon.
When this stuff surfaced, she apologized and said her views of homosexuality had evolved. Fair enough. I believe in repentance and forgiveness.
But then a whole bunch more homophobic blog posts were uncovered. Only this time, she didn’t apologize. She said her blog got hacked. That’s possible, but it’s supremely unlikely. In fact, for lots of technical reasons I won’t go into here, cyber experts say her hacking claims are flatly bogus.
The guy who found the blog posts used an internet digital archive called Wayback Machine. Apparently, it stores online content even after it’s been deleted.
According to reporting by Glen Greenwald at The Intercept, the latest batch contained more homophobic material, including:
In defense of former NBA star Tim Hardaway’s anti-gay comments she wrote “most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing.”
Wrote she “couldn’t go see (‘Brokeback Mountain’) either, despite my sister’s ringing endorsement, because I didn’t want to watch the two male characters having sex. Does that make me homophobic? Probably.”
Argued that “intrinsic” to being straight is finding gay sex acts “gross.”
Defended Marine General Peter Pace after he condemned “homosexual acts” as “immoral” by suggesting his views are actually “normal.” The general was roundly criticized – not Reid.
Opposed Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court, implying she is a closeted lesbian and comparing her “lesbian haircut” to those worn by the presidents of NOW and GLAAD.
Promoted the stereotype of gay men as pedophiles by suggesting that anti-gay attitudes are based in “concerns that adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types, bringing them ‘into the lifestyle’ in a way that many people consider to be immoral” and that “gay rights groups seek to organize very young, impressionable teens who may have an inclination that they are gay.”
Oddly – or not so oddly – after screengrabs of the newly found writings were made public, the links to them disappeared. Seems the archives of Reid’s blog, The Reid Report, no longer exist.
Experts say an archive can be only be removed by the owner of the domain so it appears Reid had the archive taken down. Was that because it was hacked, or because it was embarrassing? You decide.
Hacked or not, this isn’t the only stupid stuff Reid has said.
According to Greenwald’s article:
“Indeed, Reid has a far more extensive – and far more recent – record of homophobic and transphobic writing that is independent of the material” from her blog.
“She was a vocal defender of the abuse doled out by the U.S. Government to Chelsea Manning, which the U.N. concluded was ‘cruel, inhuman’ and bordering on torture; she mocked that abuse as nothing more than Manning whining that she wanted a ‘pillow.’ Reid repeatedly suggested that Manning leaked not out of conscience or horror at what the U.S. military was doing in Iraq but due to mental problems from being trans.
“Mocking people on gender grounds, referring to men she suspects are gay as ‘Miss,’ or implying they are trans for the sake of mockery, is a long-time Reid tactic. And she appears to have promoted, via her own tweets, at least some of the articles that she now denies,” Greenwald wrote.
So what’s the point?
The point is, this is news. And I can say with confidence that if it was (insert the name of any well-known conservative here) who had made these comments, there would be wall-to-wall coverage on all the major news channels – except Fox.
But since Reid is a respected liberal – crickets. No TV. No WaPo. No NYT. The majority of the media will just act as if the story doesn’t exist until, eventually, it goes away.
Sure, you can find the story on Fox, and some conservative websites, but not in the mainstream.
Of course, the converse of this phenomenon also is true. If that aforementioned well-known conservative was being skewered by the left-leaning media, the right would ignore the story.
The difference is, the left has a far wider reach when it comes to news.
A study released this month showed 71 percent of journalists worldwide believe the public has lost trust in the media.
Gosh, I wonder why?
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She has joined legions of other TV personalities who have created a cottage industry of Trump bashing in this country. This is not to say that Trump doesn’t give them plenty of ammunition. He does.
But the thing is, hosts like Reid say some pretty stupid things, too. Problem is, there are very few people in the mainstream willing to hold them to account for it.
Reid’s show on the weekend, “AM Joy,” is doing quite well. According to Forbes in the end of March, “With an average total audience of 1.287 million, AM Joy easily outpaced CNN (838,000) for the quarter, the third straight with a total audience of more than a million viewers. Among viewers 25-54, the demographic coveted by advertisers, AM Joy took its first victory over CNN, with 265,000 viewers to CNN's 244,000.”
So she’s kind of a big deal.
I’m not saying she’s as big a deal as the president of the United States or deserves the same level of scrutiny, but when a public figure says dumb things, I think he or she should be held to account. It’s news.
Unfortunately, you have to dig pretty deep to find any mention of Reid’s foibles.
Examples abound.
Here’s what she tweeted during the State of the Union speech:
Church ... family ... police ... military ... the national anthem ... Trump trying to call on all the tropes of 1950s-era nationalism. The goal of this speech appears to be to force the normalization of Trump on the terms of the bygone era his supporters are nostalgic for. #SOTU
Frankly, for Reid, this was fairly mild. But I can just hear CNN’s Jake Tapper skewering the poor hapless conservative who dared to characterize church, family, police, military and the national anthem as “tropes of the 1950s.”
More recently a bunch of anti-gay rants from 2007 and 2009 made it into the mainstream. She pretty much ridiculed then-Florida Gov. Charlie Christ with anti-gay slurs like refering him to “Miss Charlie.” (It was widely rumored in the press he, though married, was gay.) She said he’d be “ogling male waiters” during his honeymoon.
When this stuff surfaced, she apologized and said her views of homosexuality had evolved. Fair enough. I believe in repentance and forgiveness.
But then a whole bunch more homophobic blog posts were uncovered. Only this time, she didn’t apologize. She said her blog got hacked. That’s possible, but it’s supremely unlikely. In fact, for lots of technical reasons I won’t go into here, cyber experts say her hacking claims are flatly bogus.
The guy who found the blog posts used an internet digital archive called Wayback Machine. Apparently, it stores online content even after it’s been deleted.
According to reporting by Glen Greenwald at The Intercept, the latest batch contained more homophobic material, including:
In defense of former NBA star Tim Hardaway’s anti-gay comments she wrote “most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing.”
Wrote she “couldn’t go see (‘Brokeback Mountain’) either, despite my sister’s ringing endorsement, because I didn’t want to watch the two male characters having sex. Does that make me homophobic? Probably.”
Argued that “intrinsic” to being straight is finding gay sex acts “gross.”
Defended Marine General Peter Pace after he condemned “homosexual acts” as “immoral” by suggesting his views are actually “normal.” The general was roundly criticized – not Reid.
Opposed Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court, implying she is a closeted lesbian and comparing her “lesbian haircut” to those worn by the presidents of NOW and GLAAD.
Promoted the stereotype of gay men as pedophiles by suggesting that anti-gay attitudes are based in “concerns that adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types, bringing them ‘into the lifestyle’ in a way that many people consider to be immoral” and that “gay rights groups seek to organize very young, impressionable teens who may have an inclination that they are gay.”
Oddly – or not so oddly – after screengrabs of the newly found writings were made public, the links to them disappeared. Seems the archives of Reid’s blog, The Reid Report, no longer exist.
Experts say an archive can be only be removed by the owner of the domain so it appears Reid had the archive taken down. Was that because it was hacked, or because it was embarrassing? You decide.
Hacked or not, this isn’t the only stupid stuff Reid has said.
According to Greenwald’s article:
“Indeed, Reid has a far more extensive – and far more recent – record of homophobic and transphobic writing that is independent of the material” from her blog.
“She was a vocal defender of the abuse doled out by the U.S. Government to Chelsea Manning, which the U.N. concluded was ‘cruel, inhuman’ and bordering on torture; she mocked that abuse as nothing more than Manning whining that she wanted a ‘pillow.’ Reid repeatedly suggested that Manning leaked not out of conscience or horror at what the U.S. military was doing in Iraq but due to mental problems from being trans.
“Mocking people on gender grounds, referring to men she suspects are gay as ‘Miss,’ or implying they are trans for the sake of mockery, is a long-time Reid tactic. And she appears to have promoted, via her own tweets, at least some of the articles that she now denies,” Greenwald wrote.
So what’s the point?
The point is, this is news. And I can say with confidence that if it was (insert the name of any well-known conservative here) who had made these comments, there would be wall-to-wall coverage on all the major news channels – except Fox.
But since Reid is a respected liberal – crickets. No TV. No WaPo. No NYT. The majority of the media will just act as if the story doesn’t exist until, eventually, it goes away.
Sure, you can find the story on Fox, and some conservative websites, but not in the mainstream.
Of course, the converse of this phenomenon also is true. If that aforementioned well-known conservative was being skewered by the left-leaning media, the right would ignore the story.
The difference is, the left has a far wider reach when it comes to news.
A study released this month showed 71 percent of journalists worldwide believe the public has lost trust in the media.
Gosh, I wonder why?
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