Insufferable gasbag “Marcus Brutus” is once again plaguing NewsReal with his presence. Just like before, he’s whining about “slander” against the object of his most-unhealthy affection, Ron & Rand Paul, and just like before, his hubris is making him look like the lying buffoon, not me.
hypocrisy
Bias & Censorship at the Fond du Lac Reporter
Groups and websites like NewsReal and the Media Research Center do great work holding the big dogs of the mainstream media—the New York Times, CNN, the networks, NPR, etc.—accountable for lies and sleaze, but there is another manifestation of media bias that gets far too little attention: local media. My mother, Peg Freiburger, recently wrote an editorial to our local paper, the Fond du Lac Reporter, about legislation giving Planned Parenthood greater influence in Wisconsin public schools. The letter’s path to publication raises serious questions about the objectivity of America’s most influential newspapers.
It responds to a February 12 news report, yet wasn’t published until April 2. That’s because Mom originally submitted it on Feb. 14 (the original version of the letter appears below the fold). She waited until March 1 for it to be published or for reaction from the Reporter, which she never received, then emailed an inquiry about the letter’s status to Managing Editor Michael Mentzer. No response. She waited some more, then sent a second email to Mentzer on March 10.
Mentzer finally responded a couple days later via phone. Incredibly, he claimed the editorial staff felt “uncomfortable” printing the allegations in her latest editorial, that she needed to provide more evidence, and that the line, “It is pathetic that in Fond du Lac we have a county health officer and a county board…” cut too close to slander and libel.
At Mentzer’s request, Mom resubmitted the letter on March 16, this time with a link for her every claim. She did not hear back for the next several days, and resubmitted it on March 22. On March 23, Mentzer responded, stating he hoped to run it in the next several days, though election letters had priority. On April 2, it finally appeared—under the title, “Planned Parenthood makes money on birth control,” a name that conveniently downplays the letter’s main objections to Planned Parenthood, and the organization’s connection to Wisconsin public schools.
This is perhaps unsurprising, given that Mentzer has in the past advocated greater government power to punish those who “distort information” in public. But since when do local newspapers in general, and the Fond du Lac Reporter in particular, vet or take responsibility for the content of independent opinions?
Answer: they don’t. Personal attacks on private citizens, slanderous mischaracterizations of opponents’ beliefs and actions, and factual claims that range from demonstrably false to at least debatable have always run rampant in the Reporter. This is to be expected—the very point of an opinion page is to represent all the points of view in a community, to let the readers duke it out amongst themselves.
Click here for many examples of what the Reporter has traditionally published; here are some of the most blatant rhetoric that goes far beyond the content of Mom’s letter, which the powers that be initially thought too objectionable to print:
Rea Dunca, 6/14/06—“How are these people [opponents of same-sex marriage] different then from Muslims who blow up hundreds of people in the name of Allah?”
Leah Woodruff, 7/7/06—“Just when it seems that Fond du Lac is accepting its growing diversity, people start writing racist letters directed toward hard-working, law-abiding citizens.” [In response to a 7/5/06 letter by Elizabeth Van Bommel, which argued not for racism, but against illegal immigration.]
Brent Schmitz, 8/8/06—“Why then, does Mr. Fountain use the quote to try to force his religion on suffering and dying Americans who need the cures this research can provide?” [In response to Steve Fountain’s 8/4/06 letter, which argued against embryonic stem cell research using this quote, and making no reference to religion.]
Julie Labomascus, 9/10/06—“I wish to thank the two ladies who wrote the letters about 1950s morals and the male/female union. Both of you probably intended these letters to be serious, but they were so full of inaccuracies that they were the funniest things I’ve read in a few weeks. Thank you again for the laughs.” [This is the letter in its entirety. The author makes no effort to demonstrate what inaccuracies she’s referring to.]
Peter Cloyes, 11/28/06—“I have nothing but contempt for the parents who are trying to have the book [I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou] removed from the [Fond du Lac High School] curriculum. They are clearly moronic bigots.” [The parents objected to the book’s explicit rape scene, not its racial aspects.]
Call the opinions of local officials “pathetic,” and the editor gets cold feet. But calling your fellow citizens bigots? Accusing them of factual inaccuracies you don’t even list? Comparing them to terrorists? No problemo!
Mentzer’s “concerns” about this letter’s conduct seem like cheap excuses not to publish a strong conservative opinion about a serious local controversy, not a real, consistently-applied quality control policy. Does he really mean to suggest that the Reporter fact-checks every single opinion piece it prints? If this was the norm, very little would ever be published on newspaper opinion pages across the country!
It’s safe to say that many people who don’t read the New York Times, USA Today, or the Washington Post do read their local papers. And who keeps an eye on them? How often does bull like this go on nationwide? If Mom hadn’t pestered Mentzer with follow-up emails, would her letter ever have seen the light of day? How many conservative views are snuffed out because their authors are less persistent, or because newspaper editors are more bold in their censorship?
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Likewise, the apathy of the people is the Left’s best friend. Media bias, educational indoctrination, corruption in local government, or leaders who disregard the interests and values of their community—it all happens and continues because inattentive, unconcerned populaces let the powerful get away with it. And if all politics is local, then we can’t expect real, lasting change at the national level if we don’t open our eyes and demand standards in our own communities.
Flashback: The FdL Reporter’s Double Standards
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to see what evidently doesn’t violate the Fond du Lac Reporter editorial board’s sensibilities:
Kristopher Purzycki, 6/2/06—“The law has no place for ‘logic’ that promotes the removal of freedom from the private lives of citizens!”
David E. Beaster, 6/6/06—“I suspect that Mrs. [Anita] Anderegg would have all of us to believe that we would be better off under a feudal system where the concentration of power would be in the hands of a group of elitists.” [In response to a proposal to reduce the size of the Fond du Lac County Board from 36 members to 18.]
Rea Dunca, 6/14/06—“How are these people [opponents of same-sex marriage] different then from Muslims who blow up hundreds of people in the name of Allah?”
Leah Woodruff, 7/7/06—“Just when it seems that Fond du Lac is accepting its growing diversity, people start writing racist letters directed toward hard-working, law-abiding citizens.” [In response to a 7/5/06 letter by Elizabeth Van Bommel, which argued not for racism, but against illegal immigration.]
Maria Kohlman, 7/13/06—“I felt the Reporter did a wonderful job with the story, then someone like you had to come along and rip it apart with your racist comments.” [In response to the same letter. The Reporter reprinted this letter on 7/18/06.]
Brent Schmitz, 8/8/06—“Why then, does Mr. Fountain use the quote to try to force his religion on suffering and dying Americans who need the cures this research can provide?” [In response to Steve Fountain’s 8/4/06 letter, which argued against embryonic stem cell research using this quote, and making no reference to religion.]
A.G. Keberlein, 8/14/06—“This march to war was orchestrated by an inept Republican administration that lied to all of America about the need for such a war.”
John P. Stoltenberg, 8/21/06—“The definition of fascism in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is as follows: Fascism, a philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism…The Bush Administration perfectly fits the definition of fascism.”
Julie Labomascus, 9/10/06—“I wish to thank the two ladies who wrote the letters about 1950s morals and the male/female union. Both of you probably intended these letters to be serious, but they were so full of inaccuracies that they were the funniest things I’ve read in a few weeks. Thank you again for the laughs.” [This is the letter in its entirety. The author makes no effort to demonstrate what inaccuracies she’s referring to.]
Jan Starks, 10/4/06—“Yet it is groups such as this that seek to dishonor the memory of the fallen for a political advantage.” [Objecting to local pro-lifers who held a pro-life rally at Veterans Park.]
Ryan Long, 10/17/06—“There is no logical reason for this ban [on same-sex marriage]. Its supporters will come to the polls simply because gay people make them sick.”
Steve Fero, 10/30/06—“I’ll vote ‘no’ on the gay marriage ban amendment. It seems to me improper to use the Constitution to codify petty bigotries.”
Joseph E. Malson, 11/14/06—“By voting ‘yes’ [on Wisconsin’s Marriage Protection Amendment], you are saying it’s OK to discriminate against someone because you don’t like who they are. Plain and simple. That’s who you are as a people.”
On 11/26/06, the Reporter published a letter by Adam Kempf, arguing that not recognizing same-sex marriage is equivalent to banning interracial marriage. The letter was heavily plagiarized from a 2/12/05 Washington Post editorial by Colbert I. King.
Peter Cloyes, 11/28/06—“I have nothing but contempt for the parents who are trying to have the book [I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou] removed from the [Fond du Lac High School] curriculum. They are clearly moronic bigots.” [The parents objected to the book’s explicit rape scene, not its racial aspects.]
Kenneth Bounds, 11/28/06—“Nazis didn’t allow the Germans to read books, either. Way to go, Fond du Lac!”
Samuel McIntosh, 3/8/07—“It seems to me the only reason we are in Iraq is the oil, and to take out a puppet leader gone awry, but that’s only because he has oil.”
Ted & Hedy Eischeid, 4/1/07—“Mrs. [Linda] Clifford has an outstanding legal record, one of integrity and intelligence. Unfortunately, her opponent, Annette Ziegler, has clearly violated the Judicial Code of Conduct multiple times.”
Harold Gudex, 4/9/07—“Seventy percent of us want out of this illegal war. It is based on lies.”
Brent Schmitz, 12/14/07—“Mr. Freiburger seems to devalue debate and disagreement within the American political sphere. Evidently, only conservative teachers are worthy of community support and funding, as per the veiled threat he makes at the end of the letter.” [In response to my editorial here; my rebuttal is here.]
How Not to Argue Abortion (Updated)
I initially figured Capper was a shoe-in for the “Most Embarrassingly Self-Defeating Blogger in Wisconsin” Award—misattributing comments to people based on nothing but a first name, then digging in your heels when called on it seems pretty hard to top. But we have a new contender for the crown: our old pal Scott Feldstein.
Veterans of Wisconsin blog debates know Scott well as a foul-mouthed, hypocritical leftist who would rather conjure up dishonest, unconvincing reasons for ignoring & dismissing opponents’ views rather than actually debating them. In December, this charade devolved into an even more pitiful form: not only rationalizing why he shouldn’t believe his opponents’ claims, but fabricating reasons to suspect that his opponents don’t even believe their own beliefs!
His “reasoning” was—you’re gonna love this—pro-lifers don’t really see abortion as a human rights issue, because if they did, they’d all oppose abortion in rape/incest/life-of-mother cases, too, and they’d also support the sex-ed and condom distribution policies Scott likes; but because they don’t, it’s really all about controlling people’s sex lives.
Of course, Scott was confronted (by me and others) with credible arguments against all of this (by the way, here’s the latest counter-example to his anti-abstinence studies), but remained “skeptical.” Mind you, he couldn’t offer any good reasons for his skepticism, but proceeded to flaunt the nonsense anyway, as if he’d done…well, something to prove any of it or refute his opponents’ objections. As Allahpundit once said of Dingy Harry Reid, “like a two-year-old who’s just crapped on the carpet, he’s curiously proud of it.”
(Oh, and he also demanded to know what Planned Parenthood lied about, then when I told him exactly what Planned Parenthood lied about in painstaking detail, he ignored it for a hundred-something comments. ‘Cuz he’s such a stickler for the truth.)
But it gets better, my friends. Oh, does it get better.
This week, abortion came up once more on Boots & Sabers. Allow me to quote verbatim, so we can all revel in the majesty that is Scott’s madness:
If you believe—as you say you do—that a 3 month fetus is the legal and moral equivalent of a toddler, then you would either a) be storming the abortion clinic like Rambo to kill the murderous individuals who work there, or b) you’re a pathetic coward who wouldn’t risk his life to save roomfuls of innocent children from death. Of course there is a third explanation: You do know that 3 month old fetuses are not the moral and legal equivalent of you and me.
So, lemme get this straight: unless you also believe in abandoning the political process and the rule of law and killing abortion doctors, you don’t really believe in an unborn baby’s right to life.
There’s really only one way to respond to that:
Make no mistake: These aren’t sincere questions that Scott would stop asking if only someone would give him a good answer. He’s simply displaying a common tactic of left-wing hyper-partisanship: the need to attribute the beliefs of one’s opponents, no matter how sincere or well-argued, to any sort of ulterior motive other than the stated motivation, no matter how specious the evidence.
If Scott truly believes what he’s saying, then his ideology has so fully warped his mind that his capacity for rational, objective thought is completely gone. But I suspect he does know better. I think it’s all propaganda: he’s supporting a heinous practice, recognizes somewhat the odiousness of his position, and will throw out whatever he can to deflect moral judgment and make the other side the villains. Indeed, he deployed this gem of a point as a way of not answering The Family Guy, who noticed he described abortion as “sad and distasteful,” and asked the obvious follow-up: “If it’s nothing more than a lump of tissue, then why is it sad? Are you sad when you have a wart removed? It too was alive.”
Either way…pitiful.
UPDATE: As if we needed another indicator of how messed up the left-wing, pro-abortion mind is, consider the following: Scott says that because humans develop incrementally, meaning that in the period between just-conceived zygote and just-delivered newborn, increasing moral consideration should go along with increasing complexity (he also voted for a guy who had a a problem with those just-delivered newborns, but I digress). He also says that “a 12 week pregnancy can be terminated for any reason at all.”
Okay, so at 12 weeks, it must not be very developed or person-like, huh? I mean, it’s not like it would have any of the biggies, like a heartbeat, a fully-formed brain, or the capacity to feel pain.
Oh, wait. It has all of those things.
Something seems to have failed rather significantly in Scott’s efforts at drawing “reasonable” distinctions. How do you think he’d respond to that? If you guessed “dodge & deflect,” give yourself a cookie.
Pitiful. And monstrous.
Who Is the Right’s Charles Johnson?
Looks like others are starting to notice that John Doe debates like a foul-mouthed twelve-year-old. For the record, I think Dan Riehl’s original criticism of Glenn Beck, while valid, was over the top, but it’s hilarious to hear Doe equate him with Charles Johnson, because it seems to me that Doe is the Johnson wannabe, not Riehl. While Charles Johnson smears decent conservatives as too “extreme,” John Doe smears decent conservatives as not extreme enough.
A Special Message to My Special Friend Marcus
I made a new friend recently! He goes by the screen name “Marcus Brutus,” and attended my school, Hillsdale College, some time ago. Unfortunately, thanks to our disagreements about Ron Paul and the War on Terror, we didn’t exactly hit it off.
“Marcus” wants me to know that he fared much better academically than he supposes I did: “I’ll ask [Hillsdale President] Dr. [Larry P.] Arnn at the next fundraiser if you’ve had a chance to examine that desk of his yet…my name is on plaques at Hillsdale, and yours isn’t.” He doesn’t think I have much “intellectual cultivation,” or that I’d make it “as a secretary for any office in any level of the federalist society in [his] chapter.” Why, my heart positively shatters! (I don’t presume to be some great scholar, and I confess that I haven’t a single plaque to my name, but in my defense, I’m not exactly dead weight.)
His intellect, by contrast, is highly cultivated, and it’s very, very important for him that his readers know just how much, via seemingly-endless references to Scripture, English history, ancient Athens, and such. Since graduating, he professes to have had quite the accomplished career—Marine Corps, Iraq, application to the bar, even some time spent in Israel.
Unfortunately, I don’t think “Marcus’s” way of going about things is doing him any favors. In the spirit of friendship, allow me to humbly offer my fellow Hillsdalian some helpful advice.
Charles Johnson’s Character Problem, Exhibit #6,174
Andrew Breitbart recently got into a fight with WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah over WND’s idiotic obsession with Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Now, one would imagine this would be reassuring to those who devote considerable attention to the problem of “extremism” and “bad craziness” on the Right, and that perhaps someone like that would give credit to Breitbart for standing up to Farah.
Unless, of course, that someone happens to be slanderous knuckle-dragger Charles Johnson.
To him, the story is – despite having quoted absolutely nothing to imply anything of the sort – that Breitbart somehow “want[s] us to think [he] didn’t see it coming” that Birtherism would come up at the Tea Party Convention.
There’s no reasoning with you. The only real flaw with Dennis Prager’s takedown of your lies is that he seems to think you still have a modicum of conscience to which he could appeal.
Pro-Life Activist Murdered; Predictable Reactions Ensue
On Friday, a lunatic named Harlan James Drake allegedly shot and killed two people, including a pro-life activist named Jim Pouillon, who was protesting abortion outside a school in Owosso, Michigan (the other murder, of Michael Fuoss, was apparently personal). The suspect was reportedly offended by Pouillon’s graphic signs depicting aborted babies.
Is Barack Obama, Kate Michelman, Andrew Sullivan, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Barbara Boxer, or the broader pro-choice movement responsible for this crime? Of course not, and presently, pro-lifers are not suggesting otherwise. In fact, American Life League’s statement on the killing (issued prior to the establishment of a motive) urges only caution against hasty conclusions. I have yet to see any politicization of this tragedy, aside from observing the obvious left-wing and media hypocrisy, which is legitimate.
After George Tiller’s death, liberal after liberal wasted no time in slandering the entire pro-life movement as culpable for the actions of one man (yet the abortion movement is never responsible for violence committed by its adherents). Unlike the numerous pro-life organizations who promptly condemned the murder of Tiller, NARAL and Planned Parenthood have said nothing about Pouillon’s murder as of this morning. President Obama evidently doesn’t think Pouillon’s death is as statement-worthy as Tiller’s.
This is simply the Left’s long-standing totalitarian impulse at work yet again, from the same playbook as what we’re seeing with the healthcare townhalls—don’t address substantive arguments honestly, don’t foster real discussion, just use whatever you can to intimidate your opposition into silence. It’s all about control, by any means necessary.
Naomi Wolfe: Pro-Burqa
Hat tip to the Other McCain for alerting me to this piece by Phyllis Chesler, which smacks down a recent article in which Naomi Wolfe hails the burqa—yes, the burqa—as a symbol of feminist independence.
If you’d like to pause now to toss your cookies, go right ahead. I’ll wait.
…back? Good. Let’s continue.
Since 9/11, many have noted how conspicuously little to say liberal feminism seems to have about the rights of women in the Middle East (and within Muslim culture in Western nations), where a teenage girl’s legal inability to get an abortion without a parent’s consent is the least of her worries. Wolfe takes that double-standard to a whole new level.
Healthcare, Hatred & Hypocrisy
The Reporter has published my latest flagrant act of speech. Here’s the Director’s Cut:
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Barack Obama’s national healthcare plan [PDF link] has met tremendous opposition—polls show ObamaCare becoming less popular the more America learns about it, and townhall protests have many politicians cowering under their desks.
It’s easy to see why—the Congressional Budget Office contradicts Obama’s cost predictions almost as soon as he makes them. His promise that you can keep your current plan contradicts his campaign-trail desires to use a public option as a bridge to single-payer. Despite claims to the contrary, FactCheck.org says ObamaCare will cover abortions, and the Congressional Research Service says it’ll likely end up covering illegal immigrants. Countries like Canada are moving away from government and towards the free market to remedy their disastrous nationalized systems.
The Left is retaliating as they always do: demagoguery. House leaders Nancy Pelosi & Steny Hoyer call the protesters “un-American.” Pelosi makes blanket statements about protesters “carrying swastikas.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls them “evil-mongers.” The media routinely insinuates that anti-Obama sentiment is really just anger over a black man in the White House.
As usual, liberals are lying—most of the Obama-Hitler comparisons have come not from conservatives, but from followers of Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe figure who supports a single-payer healthcare plan even more extreme than ObamaCare. MSNBC pondered the racism of those bringing guns to townhalls—while running selective footage hiding the black skin of the armed person in their video.
And lest you think their anti-hatred sentiment is sincere, recall the antiwar protests of 2002 onward, where Bush-Hitler comparisons (plus plenty of anti-Semitism) were all the rage (no pun intended). Pelosi felt differently about “shouting down” opponents then—she told a group of Code Pink extremists: “I’m a fan of disrupters.” As the Sweetness & Light weblog recently noted, there are over 16 million Hitler references at the liberal weblog Daily Kos—an organization embraced by Obama, Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barney Frank. Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Robert Byrd, Rep. Keith Ellison, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann have all compared Republicans to Nazis.
Indeed, it was the “Lion of the Senate,” the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy, who arguably did more to debase modern political discourse than anyone in recent memory, with his famous screed that ““Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of the government.”
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe endorsed Michael Moore’s fanatic, lie-filled Fahrenheit 9/11, whose DC premiere was attended by “Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, Montana Sen. Max Baucus, South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, New York Rep. Charles Rangel, Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, and others.” Moore also attended the 2004 Democratic National Convention as the personal guest of President Jimmy Carter, who called Fahrenheit 9/11 one of his favorite movies.
Obama himself saw no problem exposing his children to the bigoted Rev. Jeremiah Wright for years, or numerous relations with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Will Ayers, including a 1995 political “coming-out” party, a favorable review of one of Ayers’ books in 1997, and more. In 2008 he routinely said his opponents would say Obama “doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency.’”
Have some protesters acted badly? Sure, every movement has its loons. But so what? It’s ridiculous to think the conduct of some conservative in Vermont should reflect on another in Wisconsin, and as anyone who’s ever tried to calm down Crazy Uncle Billy at Thanksgiving dinner should realize, it’s insane to expect that Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh can somehow enforce behavioral lockstep among every member of a movement comprised of millions of people.
Indeed, if you think only bad movements have extremists, look up abolitionist John Brown sometime.
What matters is the character of the majority and the responsibility of the leadership, and here conservatism leaves liberalism in the dust. For instance, a few fringe conservatives embrace the Obama birth certificate conspiracy, but most—the Republican National Committee, National Review, Human Events, the American Spectator, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, John Hawkins, and more—have rejected it. Can the Left say the same about “blood for oil” in Iraq, or President Bush’s National Guard service?
Savagery is at the Left’s core (as a stroll through the comment threads on fdlreporter.com can confirm). It’s all about intimidating dissenters into silence. Yesterday’s cherished hallmark of democracy is today’s intolerable act of treason. Don’t fall for their lies—and don’t let them get away with their own sins.
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Once again, the comment section is a merry menagerie of missives from morons & malcontents (with a couple much-appreciated exceptions)—you’ve got the inability to distinguish between sweeping generalization and specific statement of fact, or between ordinary expression of disagreement and genuine hate speech; the standard-issue big business boogeyman (sorry, guys, but not quite), blurring the distinction between “reform” and a specific plan of “reform,” a groundless insult toward Hillsdale College (a conservative school, yes, but I daresay you’ll find more ideological diversity—both among faculty and students—here than the average state school) and my personal favorite, Marvin49’s suggestion that I’m a plagiarist. Again we see that Internet anonymity does wonders for the dissemination of slander.
Conservative Standards 