“MSNBC issued a formal apology to Mitt Romney on Wednesday for comparing a slogan of the presidential candidate's to one used by the Ku Klux Klan. After blogger John Aravosis wrote that Romney's slogan "Keep America American" was one that happened to be used by the KKK in the 1920s …”Imagine! A major network issues an apology for a story that is factually TRUE. Mitt Romney used the phrase, not once, but at least twice. Here is Romney’s appearance last year at CPAC:
Four days ago, Romney's campaign unveiled a 60-second radio spot that repeats the same phrase. Let there be no doubt; here is the historical reference:
“Organized around the theme “Keep America American,” Klan activists murdered blacks and boycotted and destroyed Jewish businesses, while leaving their trademark, the burning cross, outside synagogues.”And here is another historical reference:
“They [Ku Klux Klan] used the generic literature produced in Atlanta, Georgia, which invited all white, Protestant, gentile, native-born Americans “who want to keep America American” to pay the $10 fee and join the movement. About a week later, twenty-five black-owned homes in the Exline Park area of South Dallas were bombed.”Has Fox News apologized for the countless defamations leveled against President Obama, Democrats, and liberals over many years? Do you recall Ann Coulter? The same incendiary motor-mouth who maligns liberals and progressives as godless traitors? The same Ann Coulter who endorsed Mitt Romney last month? Where is Mitt Romney's apology for calling the President an appeaser and a socialist?
I resent the double standard that forces an apology for reporting truth, while disregarding the mendacities and inflammatory rhetoric of right-wing media. And I resent Chris Mathews and Al Sharpton for surrendering to MSNBC's gutless management. Cowards, the whole damn lot of them!
Why would Faux News apologize for calling Obama a socialist? why would they apologize for labeling every scum bucket Republican criminal in the Congress with a (D) instead of an (R) after their name? Why would they apologize for creating Cargo Cult Conservatism? When what they are doing is making them billions of dollars?
ReplyDeleteNext you'll be demanding they apologize for hacking the phones of dead children!
I didn't realize that our American-ness was being threatened. I feel American every day. Do you suppose that the perceived danger to our American way of life might just possibly be...
ReplyDeleteA BLACK PRESIDENT!!
I'm sorry. That couldn't be. I'm sure the only problem he has with our president is his radical, leftie-socialist agenda. He's trying to appeal to people that hate Obama. That's a losing strategy.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteI haven't followed this closely, but I gathered that the apology was issued only because good journalism hadn't been practiced -- in other words, yes, the phrase Romney's campaign used has the loathsome connotations referenced, but what MSNBC failed to establish is that the Romney people actually knew about those connotations. If they did know, of course, they're deplorable. But it may also have been a sin of omission.
How about all those 25-year-old campaign strategerists doing a basic Google search before they adopt a shiny new slogan? That way, they might find out that Keep America American is KKK. But of course, if everybody did that, we wouldn't be able to sling around phrases like "teabaggers! teabaggers! teabaggers!"
But they never figure these things out -- some youthful GOP dolt is probably sitting at his desk right now, feeling mighty pleased with himself on the eve of rolling out his new slogan, "Children, Kitchen, Church" (kinder küche kirche).
By the way, what I despise about slogans like that is the brownshirt stupidity of them, whether the campaign people know the provenance or not. How much different is the sentiment of "keep America American," really, from something like "Deutschland für die Deutscher"? They appeal to the dumbest element of the Republican base.
ReplyDeleteThings I can forgive:
ReplyDeleteAny forthright oversight,
Or lapse of the synapse,
Or slip of the microchip,
Even a faux pas foie gras;
But an apology to Romney
Is dung from the tongue.
I'm with bloggingdino on this.
ReplyDeleteIf the Romney campaign uses the slogan again then Romney is the dolt as well as his campaign's sloganeering thunderbolts.
RN,
ReplyDeleteI am essentially in agreement with the really BEEG reptile too, whose erudition is far greater than this humble invertebrate. The cephalopod is having hot flashes and really BEEG temper tantrum.
The most effective thing I ever did for a candidate was print a bunch of fliers that asked if voters wanted experience and results. Then; Give Bob the job.
ReplyDeleteit was a hit so we got a bunch of candy bars and note pads that said Give Bob the job and we won the election two to one in a republican district.
Didn't do Bob the job the next election and got our butts kicked.
Good ideas are meaningless in the face of a good slogan.
And sadly for what could have been a career as a strategist, that was the last really good idea I ever had.
Well, that and my habit of swearing at and calling idiot anyone that doesn't agree to do what I think. Durbin sent a team to Quincy once to tell us how to go door to door. I told the trainer guy who was maybe 19 years old he was a f'ing idiot.
He was an f'ing idiot. I feel I'm more successful because I'm a contributor to Swash Zone and I can't remember the f'ing idiot's name.
Paul Waldman’s comments on the same story, Why did MSNBC apologize to Romney?:
ReplyDelete“While it's often said that MSNBC has moved to become the left's version of Fox News, try for a moment to imagine Fox apologizing to a Democratic candidate for some incendiary rhetoric that found its way onto their air. Ha! Far worse things are said about Barack Obama every day on Fox—hell, every hour—and if you were to charge them with conservative bias, their response would essentially be to tell you where you can cram it. The point isn't that MSNBC isn't trying to appeal to a liberal audience, because they are. Nevertheless, they still obviously live in fear: fear of being criticized, fear of being called biased, fear of having their professionalism called into question. They may have a bunch of liberal on-air personalities, but they still plainly believe in the idea of objective journalism, even if that belief can manifest itself in things like craven apologies to Republican campaigns when they didn't actually do anything wrong.”
Ahh, there is that 'fear' word again. Bullying, fear, and intimidation - which explain how the GOP has successfully moved the center of public debate further to the right. Shall we talk about the appearance of false balance when opposing viewpoints (i.e. 'talking heads') are given equal weight with no attempt to prove or disprove the veracity of competing claims? Meanwhile, Fox News dishes out nonstop sneer and jeer with not even a token liberal in sight.
'Fair and balanced' is a joke when liberal media is forced to cower in fear.