Chris Wallace Shows NewsBusters Some Love and Parrots Their Headline on Kennedy vs Helms Obits
I thought it was distasteful enough that Chris Wallace asked Juan Williams to have to explain why Ted Kennedy wasn't given the "Jesse Helms" treatment by the New York Times in their obituaries of the two men, but it also turns out that he was showing NewsBusters a little love as well. I'm glad Media Matters reads NewsBusters, so I don't have to.
Also, I'm sure I won't be the only one that thinks Chris Wallace or anyone at Fox complaining about "media coverage" is laughable on its face.
Wallace: I also want to talk about the "media" coverage of Ted Kennedy's death this week. Not only the amount of it, which was extraordinary, but also the tone of it, and I want to put up the first paragraph of The New York Times obituary on Ted Kennedy's death. This is the first paragraph this week.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night.
Now, here's the first paragraph of the Times' story on the passing of Jesse Helms last year.
Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday.
Bill Sammon, I'm sure some people will be offended that I'm even making the comparison between these two men, but that is a frightening difference.
Sammon: It is and there are two ways to rectify that double standard. One would have been for the New York Times to find something nice to say about Jesse Helms substantively, other than this mossy drawl. The other, if you're going to go the, and I think that's the preferable way to do it, because you want to, when someone dies, you want to find something nice to say.
The other way if they wanted to be fair would, they would have had to put something in Ted Kennedy's about Chappaquiddick, about his demagoguery Robert Bork, the, you know, lunch-counter America, the back alley abortions, all those kind of things, but they didn't, so either way you do it it's unfair, and that was a striking example.
Wallace: Juan, do you think that there's a striking difference in the way those two men were sent off?
Williams: Well, I think you should be nice to people at the time of their death in general, no matter what their sins, but in fact I think it was good journalism. I think in fact that if you look at the public impact that Jesse Helms had on the country, it was to stand in opposition to civil rights and all the gay rights and all this. If you look at the public impact of Ted Kennedy...
Wallace: But wasn't he for something?
Williams: Yeah! He was for stopping those things and that's what the lead said. I don't have any problem with that and in fact Chappaquiddick has been mentioned prominently throughout this whole period.
Sammon: Not in that lead.
Williams: Not in the lead but in the story. It's not like anybody's hiding Ted Kennedy's flaws. We know them.
Of course, par for the course, it's always alright to politicize a eulogy if you're a Republican. From our own Jon Perr-- Jesse Helms and the Partisan Eulogies of George W. Bush:
Eulogies often tell us more about the living than the deceased. With his glowing words Friday about the late Jesse Helms, George W. Bush offered a case in point. Lauding the legendary North Carolina segregationist just as he did Helms' fellow traveler Strom Thurmond only five years earlier, Bush boosted his Republican allies even in death. But as a quick comparison to his meager 2002 statement about Minnesota Democrat Paul Wellstone shows, President Bush is the master of the partisan eulogy.
To be sure, no one should expect - much less want - the President to excoriate the racist homophobe Helms on the day of his death. But in proclaiming of the 86 year-old Helms that "it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the Fourth of July," Bush erased the legacy of a man history will associate more with the Stars and Bars than the Stars and Stripes. The man who campaigned on the race-baiting "hands ad" in 1990 now, Bush prays, "finds comfort in the arms of the loving God he strove to serve."
Is batshit crazy.
Just another in a long line of knuckle draging, red neck,white trailer trash that we have gotten stuck with in washington.
I cannot believe the things these people find themselves proud of?
They get a nut over killing other people. They lie, cheat, steal, commit adultry, pay for abortions, is there any way to get through to these morons? I mean really they would rather live a lie then see the truth! These people are just insane!
republicanism is a mental illness!
Republicans, following a basic rule of Politics 101, successfully knocked Obama off message and he appears unable to regain control of the national debate.
I think U overestimated their chances. I'm betting the farm on Obama.
scrambling to shore up support and cut deals at the moment.
Helms was a nasty man who used those things listed as clubs for everything else he wanted to do. He really doesn't belong in the same ball park as Kennedy. Both paragraphs were more or less accurate, which, of course, really drives the wingnuts nuts.
Nice faux story. Good lead in to get a few jabs at Kennedy (in a purely observational way, of course). Let's point out a few warts to spoil any glory, purely as news, of course.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
[...] the, you know, lunch-counter America, the back alley abortions, all those kind of things, ...
what the ...???
what does that mean? what am i missing?
If you would have completely missed what Bill Sammon said, then you would have missed nothing.
If Bill Sammon talked in a forest and someone heard him, they still would have heard nothing of any use.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Saint Ronnie's glowing reviews... errr... obituaries...
where they never once talked about his war against the poor, his involvement in Iran / Contra - trading weapons for drugs, etc.
It was all just "what a great man! what a smile!"
To compare Helms to Kennedy is absurd in the extreme.
Every time I've heard anyone talk about Chappaquiddick I always agree with "I know, it's almost as bad as that time Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed her boyfriend!"
Amazingly, I haven't met one wingnut who knew that.
Damn librul' media.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
The difference is that Helms was a scumbag bigot who had no interest in helping anyone but himself and his corporate masters. Where as Teddy Kennedy did actually help regular people who really did need help.
Reslugs are just upset, jealous and worried that their obits will be truthful and only a very small paragraph depicting just the few good and nice things they ever did or said in their lives to anyone.
I can just see it now: Dick Cheney, Satan's oldest son and the quintessential master of fascist evil died today. It is also said he once left a roll in the buffet line for the person behind him - after taking a bite out of it.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
His daddy must be so proud!
say something nice about helms, ok.
helms is a dead racist, a bigot, a homophobe
and an outright anti-civil rights for anyone
who is not white, rich and privileged,
They would have given Hitler a nice eulogy, what a super nice dude.
And forget about the disgusting eulogy they gave about Kurt Vonnegut(one of my favorite authors).
They didn't say Jesse Helms beleived in Creationism (which he did)
By a nutjob named Homer Duncan called
"Secular Humanism: the Most Dangerous Religion in America"
Introduction by Senator Jesse Helms, who argued that the
damnlibbrells established the dangerous religion of Secular Humanism as the State Religion when they drove mandatory xian prayer outta the skewls.
Jesse Helms loved hisself some wedge issues.
But class geeks everywhere would've felt grateful if he handled the wedgie issue.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I felt Wallace left out a very important question when he interviewed Cheney. He forgot to ask him which ass cheek that he preferred to be kissed.
Nice way to get shit done for the peeps, dead man. And your dumbshit cracker base just ate it up. If they want to understand why they're such a shit heel state in many ways, they need not look any further than Senator No.
me-oww!
I understand jesse helms once cut federal funding for a museum exhibition on early man, because he heard there was a Homo Erectus in it.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
My understanding was helms blocked a little over 300 of Clenis's federal court appointments, only for Democrats to be blamed by republicans for the seats still being open a few years later.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
So Wallace wants to compare Kennedy with Jesse "I left my white hood at the cleaners" Helms? He wants to compare a man who championed civil rights for minorities to a man that voted against the rights of all Americans? He wants to compare a man who has fought for the past 30 years for the average American to a man that fought for corporate interest? Teddy had his faults and one huge misstep. No doubt about it. The drinking and Chappaquiddick. IF helms had his way, gays and minorities would be excluded in everything in this country. He was racist until the day he died. And Wallace wants him celebrated like Kennedy. If Fox had their way we'd have a Nathan Bedford Forrest day as a national holiday.
is intended to be a factual statement
The deceased NC Senator was a paragon of early 20th Century Southern thinking. He hated the Irish, ******s, Catholics, spics, guido's, Hebe's, Russky's, Chink's, Fag's, ****s, and anyone else not born a southern white male.
When he died of heart trouble, many fellow members of Congress were astounded that his heart could fail. They never knew that he ever even had one.
Yeah, I can crtainly understand wanting to make the two equals. Why, it's hard to tell any difference between them. I want to ask Chris Wallace if he could tell the difference between a fresh, steaming cow patty and a medium-rare Kobe beef ribeye.
I hope I'm eating dinner with him sometime. I'll be glad to take the ribeye while he tries to tell everyone how he prefers fresh cow shit.
He can't possibly be Mike's son. His mother must have fucked Robert Bork or Mike Savage.
Mike, I'd demand a DNA test if I were you...
Funny...sad, but funny.
I remember Mike Wallace shredding crooked preachers, bigots and nazis -
The very people for whom Chrissy shills.
The reich wing doesn't seem to understand that the reason Ted Kennedy is so widely loved and respected is because he fought for human rights- civil rights, workers rights, womens rights, gay rights- He had a message of hope..
He fought for righs for the poor, for the homeless, for vets, etc
Helms on the other hand was a rabid bigot and a xenophobe, who preached only hate...
Helms was a typical right wing Christian nutcase, who used his faith as a reason to hate people.
Kennedy was a devout Catholic, but was one of those rare Christians that understood that to honor Jesus, you need to help those in need...
Helms brought NOTHING positive to the table...
As the Beatles best put it..
"In the end, the love you take, is equal to the love.... you make"
So it stands to reason that
"In the end, the HATE you take, is equal to hate..you make."
Helms preached hate, so he was widely hated.
Kennedy preached love and acceptance, which was why he was loved around the world (except by the rabid right)
In Witchcraft that's called the Law of Attraction, one of the points of the Pentagram.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ3_z8jp_HY&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
of what Chris Wallace says,
there is something about him that just comes across to me as a smug, overprivileged little punk.
talked this morning about these very fine pieces by the Rude Pundit:
8/26/2009
A Message on Ted Kennedy to Conservatives Who Hated Him (Mostly Profanity-Free for the Kiddies):
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/messag...
8/27/2009
Ted Kennedy: There Went a Man:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/ted-ke...
Is that a Gooper gated haven built by Ayn Rand's favorite architect, Howard Roarke?
Would be like comparing Edward Murrow to Chris Wallace.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
They each got the obituary they earned.
you cant...you fuckin twat
mike wallace was a bad father
On a related topic: George W. Bush was an AWOL coward who said his top priority was to "replenish the coffers once out of office."
John F. Kennedy was a war hero who didn't take any salary when President.
These rightwingers are self-centered, greedy, evil pricks, who don't care about anybody but themselves - which is their perogative.
But then they get upset when people call them out on who they really are.
Sorry GOP assholes, can't have it both ways.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Frankly, those lead lines told the story like it was.
Beyond being a successful politician, Kennedy came from a fabled lineage, one brother being the most beloved president of the 20th century, and the other brother, the most beloved candidate.
Helms had none of that mythology. And was he an "effective lawmaker"? I can't remember anything he did other than obstruct. Is that worthy of a heroic obit?
think i agree that you don't want to take a shot at someone at the time of their death (as much as i enjoyed the helms opening). but, obviously these people are clueless if they don't understand why it might be difficult to say something nice about a man who spent his life trying to defeat the underdog. it'd be like a stalin obituary which focused on what a great head of hair he had, thick and flowing.
Do we have to say something nice about Hitler too since he's dead? Jesse Helms was a racist, bigot, a homophobe and a hatemonger. He spent his entire senatorial career trying hold back and hold down just about anyone who wasn't straight, white, Christian and conservative. He went as far to say gay people who died during the AIDS crisis got what they deserved because they were living an immoral and ungodly lifestyle. No one missed Helms when he died, in fact, humanity breathed a sigh of relief. He was a small minded small man not only next to Kennedy but next to most people. Fuck him. May he be experiencing the eternal torment in hell he pushed upon so many others when he was alive.
lede (lēd)
n. The introductory portion of a news story, especially the first sentence.
Say what you want about Kennedy, but he was a great man by comparison to Jesse Helms.
I haven't seen mentioned yet that to a person who liked Helms and agreed with him, "hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art" is high praise.
Comments are closed on this entry