George Costanza
A Friendly Liberal
Remember the recent screeching of the Republican Noise Machine about the Obama's administrations alleged dropping of voter intimidation charges against members of the Black Panthers and attempting to twist this false claim into a racial issue?
Media Matters has something to say about that. Listen up:
And . . .
(I love that characterization of Megyn Kelly - "perpetually outraged." Spot on.) And still more . . .
So here ya go, USMB race baiters - whatcha think of THAT?
Media Matters has something to say about that. Listen up:
. . . the ever-evolving, increasingly ridiculous New Black Panther Party "scandal," which revolves around the allegation -- and it's hard to believe that right-wingers actually profess to believe this -- that the Obama Justice Department dropped voter intimidation charges against members of this fringe hate group due to the administration's official policy of not pursuing cases in which the defendant is black and the victim is white. Is there evidence for any of this? No. Does the partisan GOP hack/former DOJ attorney making this allegation have any facts to support it? Not so much. But that's the story they're sticking to, and it has sparked a frenzy of race-baiting more explicit than any we've seen thus far during the Obama administration.
And . . .
Fox News has, of course, been leading the charge, embarking on what Jonathan Chait calls "the most widespread and mainstream right-wing effort to exploit racial fears against Obama." Glenn Beck nonsensically claimed that the New Black Panthers "have ties to the White House" and flat-out accused the administration of tacitly endorsing the "race war" he sees coming down the pike. Perpetually outraged Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, the "straight news" driving force behind the bogus story, has been corrected on the facts more times than should be necessary, but continues to hype the story with wide-eyed indignation.
(I love that characterization of Megyn Kelly - "perpetually outraged." Spot on.) And still more . . .
In some ways, that's to be expected from Fox News. The danger is that, with not much else going on and the right-wing rage machine operating at high speed, the bogus story starts bleeding into the mainstream press. Kelly herself boasted that Fox News "dragged the media kicking and screaming" to the New Black Panther story, and already there have been overly credulous treatments of the non-scandal on CNN and in the pages of The Washington Post.
So here ya go, USMB race baiters - whatcha think of THAT?