On DU, where people like to pride themselves on logic and facts, how about this?

[Stinky The Clown]

We interrupt the squabble du jour for this public service announcement:

The right wing created a scandal based entirely on lies and orchestrated reportage. They got caught.



The Administration botched the (over)reaction to that scandal.




These are two separate but interrelated events. Criticizing the right wing doesn't take away your right or ability to criticize the administration. Defending the administration doesn't take away your right or ability to criticize the right wing. I suppose it should also be said that defending the right wing doesn't take away your ability to criticize the administration, even though no one around here seems to be doing that.




Please be honest when making or refuting arguments. These are two separate events. One caused the other, but one did not cause the specific actions of the other. The specific actions belong solely to the actors who acted.





We return you now to your regularly scheduled squabbling.

[hobbit709]

1. k&r

[bigwillq]

2. K and R (nt)

[QC]

3. Are you trying to suggest that it's possible to think in ways other than binary?

That's a pretty radical idea. I don't think it will go over well around here.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Hahaha HAAAAA hahahaha

Yup. That's kinda what I'm suggesting.

Life is more complicated than Gopher Yes Gopher No.

[xchrom]

4. Recommend

[sufrommich]

6. This is what happens when posters become personally

invested in forum wars, they find themselves defending bullshit. There is no black and white in the real world.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Its the Comedy Central version of West Side Story

vs

[Hydra]

13. Personal investment in a lie will always lead you wrong

One of my favorite posters here and I got in a scuffle over the TARP legislation during the last Bush year. I'm probably still on her ignore list.

The reason? My guess based on the posts was that someone in her family stoop to get their pension wiped out, and the TARP rhetoric claimed it would save it.

I knew the Bushies were thinking "Grand theft taxpayer" not "Let's help the people."

My arguments that we need to block it now and get a real fix from people we trust found deaf ears. Rationality is not always welcome where action is desired.

[formercia]

7. Asking people to think

is a very selective elimination process. One by one, the heads of the trolls and freepers will explode, as they succumb to mental exhaustion.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. At the time of making this reply, it can be said that at least . . . . .

. . . . 13 people identified with either the Pinheads or the Knuckleheads (see my reply to another, above) and decided they didn't like that.

[lunatica]

10. It has a name too

Accountability. Different from responsibility. Everyone is accountable for everything they do or don't do.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. Be careful

Either the Pinheads or the Knuckleheads (can't recall which for this particular dust=up) don't like that concept. By my calculations, there would be 17 of them so far.

[vanbean]

11. I think you meant "refudiating" arguments.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. I was thinking . . . . .

. . . . regurgitating

[Triana]

15. The lame$tream media created a scandal based entirely...

...on lies and orchestrated reportage. And they've been doing that for at least three decades. This week, they got caught at it.

How much do you suppose they pay Breitbart for his 'work'? Follow the money.

They paid up to hundreds of thousands of dollars or more for 'dirt' on Michael Jackson for the past 20 years at least - on a DAILY basis, and they're STILL doing it - because it SELLS. Doesn't have to be true or accurate. Just sensational enough to get the ratings and subsequently, the MONEY. And it wasn't always Fox. Hello? This is their modus operandi. ALL of them. Without exception.

The lame$tream media are assassins. They ruin lives and careers for profit. They all do. And they've been doing it for a LONG time.

The right wing helps them and they help the right wing. But that is not all there is to the story...the bigger one is - as usual - being ignored. The media will pay ANYONE to give them dirt that sells - doesn't have to be a conservative. And it doesn't have to be Fox.

[Enthusiast]

16. We appreciate your guidance, Stinky.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

17. Well said. K&R

[WonderGrunion]

18. Can we get some honesty on the other side too?

The White House did not react in any way, shape or form to the right-wing blather about Sherrod. They reacted to calls from the NAACP that she be removed.

They were not "taken in" by Breitbart or Faux News. They were responding to a constituency that they should be responding to.

The NAACP, however, did get duped by Breitbart. But that should not be placed at the doorstep of the administration.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

19. "You're going to be on Glenn Beck."

Said by the Undersecretary who was demanding her resignation.

[WonderGrunion]

20. And that was what the NAACP told them

Should the administration assume that liberal and human rights organizations are lying to them when they ask for something?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

21. So the White House should say "We only did what the NAACP asked us to do." ?

Really? You can't be serious. You want the Obama administration to look like the handmaiden of the NAACP? As a political strategy to defuse the Sherrod situation?

I have not seen ANYONE advancing the position you are taking. No where have I seen ANYONE state that the NAACP asked the Obama administration to fire Shirley Sherrod. I did see their initial "refudiation" of her when they like everyone bowed under to the fake media outrage ignited by Breitbart and perpetuated by the Right Wing noise machine, but they were strong enough to come right out and apologize and say they had been snookered. That initial "refudiation" DID NOT specifically call for her to be fired. I read it.

*edit - their statement was issued AFTER her resignation and only said they concurred with Vilsack accepting her resignation.

The only person I could see advancing your version of the truth would be Rush Limbaugh.

[WonderGrunion]

22. Sherrod blames NAACP for firing

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39961.html#ixzz0uFmknx1L

A video of Shirley Sherrod, the department's Georgia director of rural development, telling an NAACP audience that she didn’t give a white farmer the “full force” of what she could provide, went viral Tuesday and prompted Sherrod to leave the department.

The NAACP condemned Sherrod’s comments in a statement, calling them “shameful.”

Asked about the NAACP’s actions during an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Sherrod said the only reason the video surfaced was in response to an NAACP resolution accusing the tea party of using “racist” tactics. “They got into a fight with the tea party, and all of this came out as a result of that,” Sherrod said.

The former Agriculture Department official also said she never heard from the NAACP to hear her side of the story prior to its statement on the video. “The NAACP has not tried to contact me one time, and that's why this happened,” she said. “I would have appreciated having the NAACP at least contact me … to try to get the truth about what happened.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39961.html#ixzz0ubffrKxs

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

23. That title is misleading at best.

In the lede paragraph Sherrod "insisted on Tuesday that she really lost her job over the tea party’s clash with the NAACP."

She does fault the NAACP for not seeking her out and getting her side of the story, but she sees herself, accurately, as collateral damage in the squabble between the NAACP and the Tea Party, which even Breitbart confirmed.

I still haven't seen any confirmation of your statement that the NAACP went to anyone at USDA or the White House and "asked" that she be fired, which was your basic premise.

[WonderGrunion]

28. Show me any timeline

Where the administration took any action before the NAACP confirmed the Breitbart/Faux reports by condemning her "racism".

That shows that the administration didn't react until the NAACP stepped in to the controversy.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

31. You specifically said the NAACP "asked" the administration to fire Sherrod

It was your statement - you support it. Don't you have the source and timeline to back up your own statement?

[Stinky The Clown]

25. Whoa ....... okaaaay

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

27. No kidding. Weird. nt

[WonderGrunion]

29. If you stood in solidarity with Sherrod

you would blame the NAACP and stand beside Obama with her. You don't care about Sherrod, she's just the martyr du jour for the netroots. Except she wouldn't stay under the bus, would she?

[Lesleymo]

24. Agreed. And plus, what drives me crazy -

- is that the "left wing" media, instead of focusing on story number one, joins the right wing media in deciding that the real story du jour is the blunder by the administration.

The headlines everywhere are about "Obama's mistake" or "Obama's over-reaction" when, (a) why not call out Fox News and their obvious, hypocritical role in all of this and (b) why not make it clear that "The White House" or "The Administration" or "An Official From The Agriculture Department Who Acted In Haste" is not synonymous with President Obama - ?

Yes, mistakes abound. But I wanna see Fox News called on the carpet. Repeatedly and loudly. The Dems need some spokespeople out there, regularly making waves.

[myrna minx]

26. K&R n/t

[Atticus]

30. No fair!

You're being reasonable!