The Latest Slut-Gate Developments
Pigs must be flying, because professional provocateur Rush Limbaugh has done the unthinkable: issued an apology for referring to Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student who testified before a Congressional panel about insurance coverage for birth control, as a “slut” and a “prostitute.” His rant, which he concluded by demanding that Fluke (whose first name he can’t even get right) post her sex videos online for the taxpayers’ viewing pleasure:
What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke, who goes before a Congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps. The johns.
Naturally, the apology is technically a non-apology: “In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.”
In what reality is calling someone a “slut” not a personal attack? Try greeting your boss on Monday with “Good morning, you slut!” Hey, it’s not personal, it’s just business.
Unbelievably, Mitt Romney’s response to the incident was actually worse than that of Rick Santorum, who at least acknowledged that Limbaugh was “being absurd.” (Though Santorum then excused the behavior by claiming, “an entertainer can be absurd.”) Asked about Limbaugh’s remarks during a campaign event, Romney said, “I’ll just say this, which is it’s not the language I would have used.”
Seriously? What language would Romney have chosen instead? “Whore” instead of “slut”? “Hooker” instead of “prostitute”? Maybe “floozy” or “tramp” have been less offensive.
Out of all the media reactions to Limbaugh’s insults, that of Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger for the Washington Post, was perhaps most bizarre. Rubin, who regularly issues demands for President Obama to denounce ostensibly “anti-Semitic” remarks from figures so loosely associated with the White House that their only connection to Obama is the term “liberal,” declined to comment on the odious comments from an extremist in her own party. When asked for comment, Rubin wrote: “Needless to say I don’t respond to faux journalists, and I have nothing to say about a radio talk show host’s comments.”
Funny, because she has something to say about everything else under the sun. Equally humorous is the denunciation of “faux journalists” by someone whose greatest journalistic exploits include linking to various conservative websites and opining about Obama “throwing Israel under the bus.” Journalism usually entails first-hand reporting, not just tossing out opinions from behind a computer monitor. If Jennifer Rubin is a real journalist, then I am Walter Cronkite.
Also provoking eye-rolling is the response of Limbaugh’s advertisers. Quicken Loans and Sleep Train Mattresses both pulled their ads, and Pro Flowers tweeted, “We would like to assure you that we do not endorse the views expressed by Rush Limbaugh.” All I can say is, these companies are fleeing from Limbaugh’s program now? So . . . when the radio host told a black viewer to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back,” that wasn’t offensive enough? When he called the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib “sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank, sort of like that kind of fun,” that wasn’t sufficiently repulsive? And when Limbaugh repeatedly played a song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” that wasn’t grounds for advertisers to go elsewhere?
Too little, too late, folks.
We Just Make Stuff Up
Wendy Kaminer at The Atlantic confirms what I’ve been banging on about for awhile: that the NYT is running a deliberate campaign of deception about Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that allowed corporations to make unlimited political donations.
In news stories as well as columns, it has repeatedly mischaracterized Citizens United, explicitly or implicitly blaming it for allowing unlimited “super PAC” contributions from mega-rich individuals . . . . When I first focused on the inaccurate reference to Citizens United in a front-page story about Sheldon Adelson, I assumed it was a more or less honest if negligent mistake. But mistakes about Citizens United are beginning to look more like propaganda, because even after being alerted to its misstatements, the Times has continued to repeat them.
This topic also puts me in the unusual position of agreeing with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which takes on the myth — promoted not only by the Times but by President Obama and the Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart tag team as well — that super PACs, the spawn of Citizens United, are funded by “dark money” from anonymous donors.
But if the problem is billionaires supposedly buying elections in secret, why do we keep hearing about the well-heeled patrons supporting Super PACs? Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess by now are nearly household names.
The reason we know who these people are is that Super PACs are required by law to file disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission. There are other political groups organized under section 501(c)4 of the tax code that don’t disclose their donors. But most of them are traditional political nonprofits like the National Rifle Association, AARP, the Club for Growth, Planned Parenthood and hundreds of others that have never opened their books. If the goal is transparency, Super PACs are an improvement.
Arthur Brisbane, the Times’ public editor, addressed critics like Kaminer in a March 2 column. He essentially defends the paper’s treatment of the Citizens United decision, conceding only that perhaps articles should also mention F.E.C. vs. SpeechNow, the court case that built on Citizens United and permitted wealthy individuals like Adelson to donate unlimited amounts to independent groups (super PACs). He writes that “framing this as a Citizens United-derived phenomenon without referring to SpeechNow has the effect of laying all blame for individual spending at the feet of Citizens United. That’s not accurate.”True, but arguing over the semantics — over which court decision to cite — misses the point entirely. The real problem with the Times’ coverage is that it refers to recent court decisions at all. The ability of wealthy individuals to sink unlimited sums into politics goes a long way back; SpeechNow just set up super PACs as the latest vehicle for that spending. Super PACs have certainly greased the wheels of independent donations, making it easier for millionaires to inject money into politics without directly hiring oppo researchers or TV producers, but non-profits (which have long been allowed to accept unlimited donations) did a pretty good job filling that role in 2008 and 2010. Brisbane’s column — a mea culpa without much culpa — just gives the Times a green light to continue the obfuscation.
Freudian Slips for Wonks
In his Feb. 24 column, Paul Krugman homed in on what has come to be known as a “Kinsley gaffe” (for columnist Michael Kinsley) in which politician inadvertently tells the truth. As the latest example, Krugman points to Mitt Romney’s remarks to the conservative Club for Growth in Michigan:
Speaking in Michigan, Mr. Romney was asked about deficit reduction, and he absent-mindedly said something completely reasonable: “If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy.” A-ha. So he believes that cutting government spending hurts growth, other things equal.
Oops. Of course, the Romney campaign quickly walked that one back, but the damage — if one can call a flash of lucidity damaging — was done. Less noticed but perhaps more satisfying for anti-austerity Krugmanites, is the following line from a Wall Street Journal editorial, “The Tragic Greek Sideshow.”
Under the burden of debt and austerity policies, the Greek economy won’t recover for years.
This, from the greatest media proponent of a balanced budget amendment? From the same editors who praise Romney’s tax plan for slashing spending to below 20% of GDP? From the folks who insist that the the European financial crisis is the direct result of lavish welfare states and bloated governments? Austerity, tax cuts, lower spending: these things are meant to goose the economy by spurring private investment. They are supposed to be panaceas for all variety of economic ills, not “burdens.” Is the Wall Street Journal admitting that the link between downsized government and mounting riches is as mythical as Krugman’s famous “confidence fairy”?
A Kinsley gaffe, indeed.
Where Credit Is Due
In other WSJ-related news, the paper continues its tradition of stinginess in giving credit to others. After The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg scored a major 45-minute interview with President Obama on Israel and Iran, most media outlets led with Obama’s most quotable statement: “I don’t bluff.” The Times noted the source of Obama’s remarks — and linked to the interview itself — by the fourth paragraph of its article: “Mr. Obama’s remarks, in a 45-minute interview with The Atlantic magazine this week, were intended to reinforce a sense of solidarity between the United States and Israel . . . .” The Atlantic gets credit in the second and third paragraphs of the relevant AP article. The Washington Post, which also drew on other administration sources for its report on the upcoming Obama-Netanyahu meeting, nevertheless name-checked and linked to the magazine on the first page of its article.
The Journal, despite using the “I don’t bluff” quotation in the first sentence of its article, neglects to mention its source until halfway through the piece: “White House officials said the president previewed his speech in an interview released Friday.” Particularly classless is the fact that the Journal credits itself even earlier, writing that “The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the White House was considering using the AIPAC speech to set a more forceful tone on potential of military action.” This sort of self-promotion is more characteristic of the AP’s series on NYPD surveillance of Muslims, which never misses a chance to throw in a sentence like “Revealed here for the first time . . . .” or “Previously undisclosed documents obtained exclusively by the AP . . . .” Yes, journalists work hard. Some just feel more entitled to blow their own horns — while minimizing the achievements of colleagues — than others.
. . . So Well Read. . . 