A New Low For Kos
This says it all about the classless individual running the biggest blog on the left:
So we’ve established that Allen is a racist. But apparently, he’s got something against Jews as well.
You guys know me; I’m pretty mild-mannered and I like to keep it clean - so I won’t say what I’m thinking, but you can guess it. This is in response to Senator Allen’s well-deserved indignation in another debate yesterday with Jim Webb:
At a debate in Tysons Corner yesterday between Republican Allen and Democrat Webb, WUSA-TV’s Peggy Fox asked Allen, the tobacco-chewing, cowboy-boot-wearing son of a pro football coach, if his Tunisian-born mother has Jewish blood.
“It has been reported,” said Fox, that “your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle name for, was Jewish. Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?”
Allen recoiled as if he had been struck. His supporters in the audience booed and hissed. “To be getting into what religion my mother is, I don’t think is relevant,” Allen said, furiously. “Why is that relevant — my religion, Jim’s religion or the religious beliefs of anyone out there?”
“Honesty, that’s all,” questioner Fox answered, looking a bit frightened.
“Oh, that’s just all? That’s just all,” the senator mocked, pressing his attack. He directed Fox to “ask questions about issues that really matter to people here in Virginia” and refrain from “making aspersions.”
“Let’s move on,” proposed the moderator, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.
Now of what possible importance is it to the voters of Virginia if George Allen’s grandmother had Jewish blood? It’s an outrageous question, NOT because there is anything wrong with being Jewish or half-Jewish or 1/8 Jewish – but because it has NOTHING to do with anything at all.
And from this, Kos calls Allen anti-Semitic.
Honestly, any given child in any elementary school has more ethics and integrity than the Nutroots® prophet…
First of all, this sounds awfully similar to this question by Mr. Schieffer in the third debate:
“Senator Kerry, a new question for you.
The New York Times reports that some Catholic archbishops are telling their church members that it would be a sin to vote for a candidate like you because you support a woman’s right to choose an abortion and unlimited stem-cell research.
What is your reaction to that? ”
What an accusatory question that had nothing to do with anything. I mean, the man asked 20 questions during the debate and this was one of them? Please. As opposed to this question to Bush later on:
“Mr. President, let’s go to a new question.
You were asked before the invasion, or after the invasion, of Iraq if you’d checked with your dad. And I believe, I don’t remember the quote exactly, but I believe you said you had checked with a higher authority.
I would like to ask you, what part does your faith play on your policy decisions? ”
Why was that two separate questions? Are either relevant?
Second, I do agree though, asking about your religion in that particular forum is silly. But, by the sound of how he handled the question it sounds as though some amount of criticism is warranted. If Kerry had responded with indignation towards Schieffer tell me there wouldn’t have been a firestorm. So, is kos not approved to use tasteless snark? That happens in politics sometimes. Kos does not say ‘anti-semitic’ does he? Oh, and of course there is the rest of the post you left out:
“So far, I’m with Allen. The moderator later said she was intrigued by the possibility, which is fine. But it’s a ridiculous question to ask in a debate, completely irrelevant to the forum.
Sounds like a similar sentiment to yours…
Then,
“Excuse me? Asking someone if their mother had Jewish blood is “making aspersions”? In other words, according to Allen, it’s an insult to ask whether you have Jewish blood. ”
It sounds like he’s made a conjecture that may or may not be true (to my eyes, the aspersion was asking the question, not anything to do with Jewish or not Jewish or whatever, I just think it wasn’t the right word to use…maybe “irrelevant” would have been better), which might be indicated by his choice of the word “apparently”. That’s a tell-tale word for “snark forthcoming”. You obviously don’t agree. But, classless because of this?
Sorry, Mark, there are many other things you could point to that show his lack of tact (or what you would call “classless”), but this one is a bit of a stretch…
Mike, I understand what you’re saying, but Kos says, “…apparently, he’s got something against Jews as well.”
That’s accusing someone of being anti-Semitic. No ifs, ands, or buts…
Mike, you’re stretching so much you could double for Plasticman.
I’m not crazy about the wording of either of the above questions you cited, but at least they both have something to do with policy. The question Allen got boiled down to an accusatory “Are you a Jew?” That’s pretty classless right there, and that’s before Kos digs in.
Ah, so it’s not classless, but it’s tasteless, and that’s OK? Forgive me for not seeing the nuance here. And are you really going to make a lame semantic argument of “he didn’t say anti-Semitic” when Kos did in fact say this shows Allen has a problem with Jews?
Really, the only thing Kos has to go with is the word aspersions, and you even acknowledge he’s probably making the wrong assumption here. So your defense seems to boil down to “classless” is too harsh for a gentle soul like “Screw ‘em” Kos, but “tasteless” is appropriate.
Ever since Bernard Shaw quizzed Mike Dukakis on national television (“What would you do if Kitty got raped?”), if you’re running for office you can expect all sorts of off-the-wall questions.
Hey, it’s Fox — at least they didn’t ask him to take off his pants to see if he was circumsized –
Mike, it’s not exactly the same sceanrio with the questions to Bush and Kerry as the one to Allen. Schieffer asked the men about how their faith (each is well-known as a member of a particular denomination of Christianity) influences their political decisions.
Fox was asking about Allen’s ethnicity; everyone knows he is a practicing Christian, so that is not an issue. A commentor on LGF made a more appropriate comparison: a “journalist” asking an African-American politician with a light complexion, “Are you really black? Do you have any white ancestors?”
Peter, that opened the door to so many comments, none of which are appropriate. *seals mouth*
[...] Decision ‘08 A New Low For Kos You guys know me; I’m pretty mild-mannered and I like to keep it clean - so I won’t say what I’m thinking, but you can guess it. This is in response to Senator Allen’s well-deserved indignation in another debate yesterday with Jim Webb: This says it all about the classless individual running the biggest blog on the left: [...]
How about this campaign slogan: “I have everything my opponent has, except a foreskin”
“So we’ve established that Allen is a racist. But apparently, he’s got something against Jews as well.”
Is Kos saying that if you don’t like jews, you still can’t be called a racist? The clear distinction he is making is that hatred of jews and racism are two seperate things.
I guess he is working on appeasing his members.
I moniter Kos, Atrios, MyDD, firedoglake, etc. just to keep up with what the oppo is talking about. They very rarely reference any current event. They almost totally ignored the recent Israeli war. They talk almost 100% about the upcoming elections. And they use the most foul and underhanded methods, repeating slurs and disproven anecdotes over and over, to reinforce them. They come up with really despicable nicknames for any Republican or conservative commentator (or any lib they feel is not sufficiently pure) and repeat them over and over. They come up with childish, ribald and sometimes extremely tasteless constructions to reference some cheap shot gotcha: for instance, any time any Republican cries foul about Democrat or “progressive” underhandedness, they are called a Whiny Ass Titty Baby (something the progressives pretty much have a monopoly on is whinging)-or- they claim victory either way to pump up the troops in any contest (like the Chaffee/Laffey primary) and keep repeating the reference to their great win over and over in posts.
Redundancy is their method. They seek to get propaganda ingrained into the popular knowledge by repeating falsehoods, cheap shots and “Rape Gurney Joe” type nicknames. They constantly refer to unproven facts, like Al-Qaeda having zero connection with Saddam, or that absolutely no WMDs have been found in Iraq, etc. They make up false constructions like “we’ve been in Iraq longer than it took to win WWII (actually it took 3 weeks to win Iraq, and the occupation is so far not as long as the 60+ years we’ve been in Germany).
All this stuff has a pattern. Kos & Co. seem to think the Republicans have framed the political narrative for a generation or more, and they seek to upset that by doggedly repeating lies, distortions, mean-spirited digs and cheap shots over and over and over.
Now we see that Allen is routinely called, and understood to be, in fact a racist. The newest wrinkle is he is a self-hating Jew. This will now be repeated over and over and over.
The problem is, a lot of people don’t follow the news or blogs or learned commentary. They kind of pick things up at the watercooler. And that’s what Kos is counting on. Because snark and gossip and destructive rumours are the kind of thing people repeat. The libs prime the pump so to speak.
There is no equivalent devious and hateful behaviour that I’ve seen on the right. It reminds me of how mullahs can say whatever they like about Christians and Jews and no one bats an eye, but if the Pope says one negative word its a big brouhaha. Its kind of the same thing with libs. They say the most debased and dishonest crap and get away with, while going nuts if they feel slighted.
Sort of like 50 years of Oliver Stone, Mike Moore and other libs making movies slamming conservatives, and one TV movie comes out with a few ‘dramatic licence’ sections and they go batshit.
Touchy, they are. And bad people as well.
Aaron: I agree it’s not the SAME scenario, but it’s similar. The question as posed to Kerry was “some people say it would be a sin to vote for you…” (accusatory, and hence the similarity) and to Bush “faith is important to you, explain”. Come on. You see no difference there? Please. Also, there is no reason they wasted two questions (of 20) besides to pander to the right, which Schieffer gladly did being good friends with the president and all. But I suppose that’s a conspiracy theory for another day.
Dennis: I suppose this is a semantic argument as well, but class and taste are different in my eyes. I think a lack of class is where you use a tasteless joke in an inappropriate setting. Using a tasteless joke on your very own website says nothing about how “classy” you are. My distinction is that it was a tasteless joke (I don’t think there is such a thing as a “classy” joke, at least, I’ve never heard them put together and if you don’t think it was a joke I don’t think I’ve heard of the phrase “classy comment”). The same with Hamsher’s black face (as I arged then too). Those happen. It was meant to be amusing to he and his ilk, but that doesn’t make him classless, it makes it a tasteless joke. Nor does it make it a “new low” for him. I think the oft quoted “Screw ‘em” is evidence at some sort of hatred to a specific group of people for whom he believes are evil (contract killers, which would be anyone participating in any army anywhere, if you get right down to it, which sort of fits into those against wars in general, but, of course, kos was in fact one of these contract killers for a number of years, so, that’s kind of ironic [in the Alanis Morrisette sort of way]). How is this different from docweasel’s sentiment calling kossacks bad people? Point being, many people have hatreds/dislikes towards specific groups of people, usually with people they don’t agree with. It’s readily apparent kos disagrees with most on the right at this particular time (and for the foreseeable future probably). I just think it’s funny you’re all complaining about the left gossipping while at the same time you are gossipping about kos. “Hardy har har” funny too. Oh, and yes, being tasteless is “ok” insofar as it is an infrequent occurrence or it is actually funny. (as a further explanatory note, I believe “class” is something someone shows when responding to or communicating with someone directly. If Allen had an issue with his comment and he confronted kos about it saying he wants kos to apologize and kos said something like “up yours pal”, that would be “not classy” AND tasteless, unless of course, Allen’s initial confrontation warranted said response).
Mark: This is a semantic argument I suppose, but “has something against Jews” does not equal labelling someone as “anti-Semite” in my eyes. It would be like saying “Do you have something against the Smith’s, the family on the corner?” “Why, yes, yes I do, they don’t mow their grass regularly and they let their dog poop wherever he wants and they don’t clean it up”. It’s accusing him of harboring resentment towards either a small group or large group or some unknown amount of Jewish people because of some actions they generally do (to me that would be more like pigeon-holing). Or, you’re right, the phrase includes the possibility that he’s an anti-Semite through and through and he wants them all dead, but it also could also be “I have something against the Jews, they killed my savior”. Or some other such pithy nonsense. Whatever though, even had kos said “apparently he’s an anti-Semite” it would still be nothing more than “tasteless political humor”. Just like “jackass” (the show/movie, whatever) is “tasteless physical comedy” [and, no, I don't find either particularly funny]. Of course, “my eyes” could be deceiving me.
mtl: I’ve never quite understood this “Jewish race” thing. Can anyone become Jewish? I mean, if Sammy Davis, Jr. can become Jewish, he was obviously not a part of the “Jewish race”. So, “Jews” can be “those of the Jewish race” or “those who practice the Jewish religion”. Or am I incorrect here? Of course, there are a small amount of people who are not both, but perhaps that is the distinction, that “having something against Jews” isn’t a race issue because “Jews” could have been refering to the religious aspect of the Jewish race, not the race entirely. Is there a form or reasoning that the two shouldn’t be separated and therefore kos is actually the anti-Semite?
Mike – if you have something against Jews, you’re an anti-Semite, by definition. If you have something against blacks, you’re a racist. The idea here is that you place a label on someone and make assumptions based on a particular trait. It’s not complicated.
As to the Jewish race vs. religion, a person is of (at least partial) Jewish ethnicity if they have Jewish blood in their veins; the Jewish religion can be adopted, but the race cannot be…
http://www.jewfaq.org/judaism.htm
“In the 1980s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, at least for purposes of certain anti-discrimination laws.”
v.
(same article)
“…setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race.”
seems to be some discordant thought. I’m probably with the latter, but then the SCOTUS is the church of liberalism, so I wonder who Kos treats as an authority.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_12_14.shtml#1103052774
“But there’s also fuzziness about what constitutes “race.” Suffice it to say that an ethnic group is a group that’s usually linked by descent and culture, and that perceived itself and is perceived by others as an ethnic group. We need not delve further into this here, except to say that Jews are often treated as an ethnic group much as are Irish, Poles, Gypsies, and so on.”
“Come on. You see no difference there?”
Well, yes there is a difference, but that’s a completely different subject, and by your rhetorical question (or at least I assumed it was rhetorical) “Why was that two different questions?” I was under the impression that you saw no difference between the two, meaning that they could be generalized as “What role does your faith play in your politics?”.
I thought you were comparing the questions that regard faith to the question that regards ethnicity, as the topic of this thread relates directly to George Allen’s response to a probe about his ethnic background. But after your clarification I understand that you are just complaining about inconsistency between questions in a debate that two years ago. Why?
Aaron: Actually, I remembered the question as posed to Kerry at the time and wanted to point out how he responded to the question (which in my opinion was just as asinine as the question asked of Allen, or, posed in such a manner as to invite an outrageous response). He did not respond with indignation as he very well could have. At least Allen could have been calm and said “I’m not quite sure I understand the purpose of this question…” or some other mild rebuke. In any event, as I found the transcipt I recalled the latter question to Bush. My question regarding why there were two questions was more of a point that the moderator could have asked “Both of you have strong faiths, could you please discuss how it affects your daily life in politics” rather than a pointedly negative question towards Kerry (with a veiled accuasatory comment that some archbishops made) and a pointedly positive question towards Bush. The major point was Kerry’s response to the stupid question as posed by Schieffer and his lack of indignation to the moderator after the question was asked.
Mark: I started typing and typing and typing in response, but it doesn’t really matter. If you think anyone that has any negative thoughts towards a specific group of people is a racist, we’re gonna disagree on this one (I don’t really see “racism” in black and white terms, no pun intended). I’ll call someone a racist the second I can sense genuine hatred in their voice/tone. Yes, that’s obviously subjective, but I’m ok with that. For the record, I don’t think Allen is a racist (or rather, I don’t have enough information to conclude one way or the other), but I’m not going to say kos is a classless person for pretending so.
mtl: Thanks for the info regarding race vs. religion. Both sides make sense to me, but sometimes the word “Jews” is ambiguous. I still contend it was nothing more than tasteless humor. Whatever though.
Mike, I’ll let it go, as I don’t wish to be tedious (probably too late). I can’t resist one final point: it’s the “towards a specific group of people thing” that does in fact make that racism. If I have something against a specific group of people (say, the Jews) because they are a member of that group, then yes – by definition, I’m an anti-Semite (or anti-black or anti-elderly or whatever).
The logic seems crystal clear to me, but as I said, I’ll move on (really! I promise!)…
Mark: Fair enough. Just one question, is it fair to say there are many levels of racism? I mean, would a statement like “person A is more racist than person B because…” have any logical value whatsoever? That’s sort of where I’m coming from. So, yes, I suppose I guess I would say kos accused Allen as being anti-Semitic to some unknown degree (albeit, what I perceive to be in a joking manner). You were right, I was wrong. Hot damn.
I think there are degrees, yes…as an example, not every anti-Semite would wish the Holocaust on the Jews (in other words, a person might hate a group of people and prefer never to deal with them, but not wish them dead)…