Frameshop: For Assassination Joke, Huckabee Should Be Off TV

Having joked less than a year ago about killing Mitt Romney (and his supporters), former Republican candidate for president, Mike Huckabee, has now made light of assassinating Sen. Barack Obama.

According to CNN, during his recent speech at the NRA convention in Louisville Kentucky, the former presidential candidate offered the following joke in response to a loud noise off stage:

"That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak...Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor." (from CNN PoliticalTicker.com)

As Huckabee transitions from presidential candidate to media pundit, his habit of joking about political assassination leads many Americans to question the place of violent rhetoric in the speech of high-profile political pundits, as well as the consequences that should result from it.

Legal vs. Civic Questions
Many would argue that joking about assassinating a Presidential candidate falls well within the realm of free speech and should not merit any particular consequences--legal, moral or otherwise. Indeed, past court rulings on the question of jokes about assassinating a sitting president suggest that it is very difficult to establish any kind of legal culpability in these instances. The question, it seems, falls down to two factors: (1) the often 'vituperative, abusive, and inexact,' nature of political rhetoric and (2) the legal difficulty of establishing intent to bring about actual harm in these instances (see Eugene Volokh, 'Jokes About Killing the President' Apr 27, 2005).

Legal questions, of course, are only one aspect of this issue. In addition to what is permissible by law, Americans are also deeply concerned with whether or not certain kinds of speech tend to undermine the necessary pragmatic nature of our civic process--our ability to turn to the media and to each other to learn what we need to learn in order to achieve our common goals. When we turn away from legal questions and begin to examine the kinds of rhetoric that may undermine our deliberative democracy, we start to see that Americans are by-and-large opposed to violent jokes and speech tossed out by political pundits.

And yet despite this opposition on the basis of maintaining a healthy, civic process, violent-rhetoric from high-profile pundits continues largely unchecked.

In 2006, for example, Ann Coulter joked about the need for someone to assassination Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens:

We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media. (Coulter Jokes About Poisoning Supreme Court Justice, FOX News)

A trained Constitutional attorney, Coulter understood the legal precedents regarding jokes about political assassination--meaning that she knew how to craft a joke about political assassination such that it would not land her in any kind of jeopardy. Nonetheless, it is clear that Coulter also know that joking about assassinating a Supreme Court Justice would earn her a great deal of media coverage and have an impact on national debate on abortion.

In a political context where anti-abortion activists have assassinated medical practitioners on the excuse that they were stopping the doctors from performing further procedures, many interpreted Coulter's joke as having contributed to an atmosphere of violence and threat in American politics.

Citizen Outrage Ignored By Media Companies
Citizens' concerns over Coulter, however, were not in any way heeded by corporate media--both broadcast and publishing--nor by political parties. Following her remarks, Coulter continued to earn huge book deals and continued to enjoy virtual open access to high-profile broadcast media.

What Coulter and Huckabee share in common is that they both used rhetoric that was legal, but nonetheless toxic to healthy political debate.

When a political pundit uses a high-profile political forum to joke about assassinating his or her political opposition, they result is that deliberative debate shuts down. Indeed, the response that violent rhetoric elicits in the minds of Americans is not the desire to censor speech in any way, but a call for violent-speech to be channeled towards entertainment where citizens are provided with the resources to make more informed choices about what they will and will not watch or hear.

In the meantime, Mike Huckabee's joke about an assassination attempt on Sen. Obama will lead to the same outcome as Coulter's joke about assassinating John Paul Stevens: disruption of deliberative debate followed by greater broadcast presence awarded to him by the media.

The outcome should be the opposite: media marginalization instead of aggrandizement.

For joking about the assassination of Sen. Obama, Mike Huckabee should be removed from the rosters of all the various cable and network stations on which he regularly appears.

McCain To Speak At Same Event As Violent Nugent

NUGENT THREATENED LIVES OF OBAMA/CLINTON DURING 2007 CONCERT

Although mostly hidden by his campaign, on May 16, 2008--four days prior to the Kentucky Primary--Sen. John McCain will participate in the 137th NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky--in the same event as right-wing pundit Ted Nugent.

Sources say McCain is 'penciled in' to the Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum, but not officially listed on the schedule.

Why might McCain be reluctant to have himself officially listed on the NRA's event? The answer may well be his concern about being associated with Nugent who, less than one year ago, held up two machine guns at a concert and--in one of the most brazen displays of violent rhetoric by a well-known pundit ever caught on video--threatened the lives of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Diane Feinstein, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Barack Obama.

"Suck On This Obama...Piece of S--t!"
It is stunning that McCain's decision to appear at the same event as Nugent on the eve of the May 20 Kentucky Primary has not yet became a major story in print or broadcast media, particularly given the prominence of Nugent in the NRA event website and the preponderance of video on Nugent widely available on the internet.

Why might McCain be reluctant to have himself officially included in the NRA's schedule?  One reason might be the prominence the NRA routinely gives Nugent on their website and at the event as well as the large amount of video available on the internet showing Nugent using violent language, encouraging citizens to engage in vigilantism, and threatening the lives of sitting members of government.

Nugent's past violent outbursts are well documented and widely available for any reporter who wishes to examine them.

The following video from 2007, for example, shows Nugent at a concert holding two machine guns in his hands and threatening the lives of a governor and three sitting senators:

These are some of the violent lines Nugent shouts at the cheering crowd in the video clip:

• "Hey, Obama! [holds up machine guns] You might want to suck on one these you punk...Obama, he's a piece of s--t!"
• "Hillary! [holds up machine guns] You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b---h!"
• "Hey Diane Feinstein! [holds up machine guns] Ride on these you worthless whore!"

In this video from a 2007 edition of Texas Monthly, Nugent explains his position on the Second Amendment.  About two minutes into the recording, Nugent appears to urge citizens to take up arms and 'blow the brains out' of criminals:

The quote from that sequence is as follows:

"...instead of arresting people for molesting children 24 times, I would rather the dad walked into the room, found a person molesting that child and blew his brains out."

 

This video of Nugent was posted on YouTube in 2007, but appears to have been recorded either in late 2001 or early 2002.  About two and half minutes into the interview, Nugent expresses his violent belief that certain criminals should be summarily 'destroyed':

These videos are in addition to the interview published in the Detroit Free Press where Nugent said, in reference to his decision to give a conference in South Africa during apartheid,"My being there (South Africa) isn't going to affect any political structure.  Besides, apartheid isn't that cut-and-dry.  All men are not created equal." Detroit Free Press Magazine, July 15, 1990 (from this CampusProgress.org page on Nugent).

Nugent, apparently, believes that Democracy can be reduced down to one interpretation of the Second Amendment, yet the most basic principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence is expendable (e.g., "All men are created equal.")

McCain Hiding From Nugent's Violent Rhetoric
The strategy of the McCain campaign seems to be very simple:  benefit from the over conservative program of NRA event without suffering from any association with Nugent.

The NRA seems to be playing along.

Despite past statements critical of McCain by right-wing pundit and NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre, the NRA seems to have done what it can to accommodate McCain's political need to strike a distance from the well-documented violent language and threatening antics of Nugent.

But what about the media?

When Nugent appeared on stage with the Governor Rick Perry at his inaugural ball--wearing the Confederate Flag--big media hardly blinked an eye.

Certainly, McCain is free to associate with the NRA, and without question there are tens of thousands of NRA members who will disagree in part or in whole with the views of Nugent and other speakers who may appear at the NRA event.

Nonetheless, journalists and producers at CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC have an obligation to bring McCain's participation in the NRA event, as well as the concurrent  role of Nugent, to wide public attention.

Frameshop: Did Limbaugh Try To Incite Violence?

For weeks, now, Rush Limbaugh has been trying to incite political violence by giving on-air military-sounding orders, effectively 'commanding' his listeners to wage war against the U.S. electoral system.

The right-wing pundit's 'orders' to his Republican listeners have been clear: vote in the Democratic primaries as a coordinated tactic for sowing division in the opposition party.  The goal of such 'chaos,' Limbaugh has stated explicitly, is to foment hatred between different parts of the Democratic Party leading, ultimately, to street riots during the Denver convention.

The ongoing incident raises a serious question: 

How does Limbaugh's bid to incite political violence with radio broadcasts differ from previous instances where radio has been used to that end (e.g., Rwanda)

Most Americans would agree that using radio to incite political violence is not only wrong, but the attempt itself represents a massive failure in our democracy.  How Limbaugh's broadcasts differ from, say, radio broadcasts that incited violence in Rwanda and Kenya, for example, can help us to understand exactly what Limbaugh was doing and the exact danger it poses.

Calls To Incite Violence vs. Calls For Acts of Violence
During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, radio broadcasts called for direct acts of violence to be committed by one faction of the Rwandan public against another.  These broadcasts drew considerable attention because (1) radio was the major source of information for the listeners in question, (2) the audience was largely non-literate, and (3) there was an ongoing nationalist struggle into which the broadcasts fed (emphasis  mine):

In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in a place called Bugesera, south of the national capital. On 3 March, the radio repeatedly broadcast a communiqué supposedly sent by a human rights group based in Nairobi warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi. Local officials built on the radio announcement to convince Hutu that they needed to protect themselves by attacking first. Led by soldiers from a nearby military base, Hutu civilians, members of the Interahamwe, a militia attached to the MRND party, and local Hutu civilians attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsi (International Commission 1993: 13–14).

(from "Hate Media in Rwanda")

The broadcasts in Rwanda, thus, were directly engaged using false reports as propaganda, the goal of which was to encourage listeners to commit acts of violence.  The effort worked, and subsequent investigations linked the violent language to the actual deaths, thereby including the broadcasts within the framework of the genocidal action both legally and morally.

In stark contrast, Limbaugh's broadcasts were removed from encouraging direct acts of violence, focusing instead on creating the conditions for violence--what Limbaugh described as 'chaos.'  In this transcript (Apr 23, 2008), Limbaugh explains how his broadcasts are intended to incite political violence.  Notice how he describes creating conditions for violence rather than actual violence (emphasis mine):

This is about chaos.  This is why it's called Operation Chaos!  It's not called Operation Save Hillary.  It's not called Operation Nominate Obama.  It's called Operation Chaos! The dream end... I mean, if people say what's your exit strategery, the dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that.  That's the objective here.  And there has been nothing that's happened on the battlefield for my vision of this to change just because Hillary won. We got what we wanted last night, and people want me to change course now?  "We got what we wanted, okay, now time to support Obama." No.  If Obama runs the table with the rest of these primaries, it's over, and the superdelegates are going to have a much easier choice choosing him, because he'll end up with a big lead.

(from "Why It's Called Operation Chaos")

So the goal of the 'operation' for Limbaugh is not to encourage his listeners to commit acts of violence, but encourage his listeners to commit acts of politics that 'end' in Democrats committing acts of violence on each other.   

Even though the violence is one step removed for Limbaugh in comparison to the 1990s broadcasts in Rwanda, Limbaugh clearly includes the eruption of political violence as an ideal goal of his rhetoric. 

Framing the Opposition As A Violent Threat, 'Self-Defense'
Interestingly, even though Limbaugh's attempt to incite violence differs from the Rwandan example, his framing of the political opposition shows a striking similarity.

Namely, while Limbaugh defines the American Left as a clear, violent threat to the well being of his listeners.  The broadcasts, in other words, are framed as an effort to incite violence amongst the Left as a larger strategy for preventing that so-called Left from committing acts of violence on his listeners (emphasis mine):

We don't burn our cars. We don't burn down our houses. We don't kill our children. We don't do half the things the American left does.  We need the American left -- and this is another great thing about Operation Chaos; nothing to do with my ego. We need as many ignorant Americans to wake up and find out exactly who the modern-day Democrat Party is as dominated by the far left in this country.  We need that to be seen.  Now, I am not inspiring or inciting riots.  I'm dreaming.  (singing to the tune of White Christmas) "I'm dreaming of riots in Denver."  Remember 1968? And which party did that? It was the radicals in that party, the anti-war radicals, the same bunch of clowns that are running around defining the Democrat Party today.

(from "Screw the World! Riot in Denver!")

The violence in Limbaugh's broadcasts, in other words, is not just the attempt to incite riots, but also a way of defining the Left as destructive murderers of children--as a violent threat to the American people.

In Rwanda, the radio broadcasts did not just invoke Hutu to kill Tutsi's, but did so by claiming falsely that Tutsi's had killed large numbers of Hutu and that, therefore, Hutu must form self-defense groups to prevent Tutsi from killing again.  Defining Tutsi as murderers, in other words, was a crucial part of violent Hutu broadcasts that led to the genocide of Tutsi.

Disturbingly, Limbaugh is not alone in using broadcast media to repeatedly define the American Left as a violent threat to American citizens, but is helped in this effort by a large cohort of right-wing TV pundits.

Civil War
The final point of comparison is the role of nationalism in the broadcasts, and in particular the relationship between calls for violence and civil war.

In Rwanda, the radio broadcasts explicitly called for the start of a civil war, using an explicit language of genocide and defining the act of a killing as an 'extermination' of 'cockroaches':

After 6 April, RTLM called on all Hutu to 'rise up as a single man' to defend their country in what was said to be the 'final' war. One announcer predicted that the war 'would exterminate the Tutsi from the globe ... make them disappear once and for all' (Chrétien et al. 1995: 205). RTLM staff carried forward all the themes so vigorously developed in previous months, emphasizing the cruelty and ruthlessness of the Tutsi (RTLM transcripts: 15 May; 9, 14, 19, 20 June 1994). As one announcer said, using the term inyenzi or cockroach to refer to the RPF and its supporters, 'the cruelty of the inyenzi can be cured only by their total extermination' (Chrétien et al. 1995: 204; RTLM transcript: 3 June 1994).

(from "Hate Media in Rwanda - Incitement")

As mentioned above, Limbaugh does not use any rhetoric in his broadcasts that call for direct violence, but instead calls for his listeners to create the conditions for violence.  Nonetheless, Limbaugh introduces and dwells on the question of civil war.

Consider, for example, this extended discussion between Limbaugh and a caller from his May 6, 2008 show.  Notice Limbaugh's argument in response to the caller's attempt to define 'operation chaos' as a violation of the American tradition of civil debate:

CALLER:  Well, my point is that I try and keep -- I try to listen to different points of view, and I can't say that I always agree with you, but I still like to listen, all right?  And I think that the problem right now in this country is the uncivil discourse.

RUSH:  That's not the problem

CALLER: You know, I -- I had a whole bunch of signs down by my road --

RUSH:  Look, Chris, I'm getting up to it on time here.  I --

CALLER:  Okay, well, I'll let you go, Rush. It's not --

RUSH:  No, I want you to listen to this one more thing here. I don't mean to be rude, here. I really don't.

CALLER:  Okay. 

RUSH:  But the problem is not the discourse.  Go back and read how people spoke to one another in the days of the founding, some of the early days around the Civil War.

CALLER:  And it was that bad?

RUSH:  Oh, it was worse! It was worse.  The problem is not "discourse."  Discourse is productive. It's people debating ideas.  The problem in America is too much liberalism.  The problem in America is too many liberals, too many people are ignorant. Our most expensive commodity in this country is ignorance, not discourse, not uncivil discourse.  There are too many ignorant people who have been short-changed by our education system.  In a more balanced and educated society, liberalism would be but 20% of the elected seats in this country.  But they have for 50 years weaned a bunch of people away from self-reliance, created a bunch of dependents among every demographic group out there, and that's how they profess to get elected.  But they are destroying the country.  They are destroying the institutions and traditions that made the country great.  Everything liberals try to fix gets worse.  The most recent example, we are now producing food for fuel, and we have food riots around the world.  We have starvation around the world.

(from "Operation Chaos and 'Civil Discourse'")

Limbaugh's argument here is profoundly disturbing.  While he invokes the Civil War to claims that his efforts to incite violence are all part of good healthy debate of ideas, he then suggests that Liberal ideas have led to the destruction of American institutions and mass starvation--an situation his listener might naturally interpret as a pretext for civil war.

Limbaugh's argument, in other words, is simple:  it is not his broadcasts that incite violence, but Liberal ideas.

Conclusion: Limbaugh Broadcasts Violence
When a prominent radio figure begins systematically calling for his listeners to engage in acts that intended to bring about political violence, citizens have a responsibility to examine the implications of such a development.

In Limbaugh's case, the comparison to Rwandan hate radio shows the right-wing pundit's differences and similarities to past uses of broadcast media to incite violence.   Limbaugh does not call for direct violent action, but he defines the American Left in ways that suggest violent action against them may be warranted.

Moreover, Limbaugh specifically claims that calling for citizens to create chaos leading to violence is a healthy part of the Democratic process, but that holding Liberal political views is a threat to democracy's survival--thereby leading his listeners to see the political opposition as a civil enemy.

Should Limbaugh be free to continue these broadcasts?  Of course.  But that freedom does not release journalists from analyzing Limbaugh's violent-rhetoric in a broader context and discussing the implications it holds for Americans.

Frameshop: Coulter Jokes About Lynching, Still on CNN

As usual, Ann Coulter's newest round of pundit appearances included going on CNN to call millions of Americans "traitors" (treason is a crime punishable by the death penalty) and suggest that Sen. Barack Obama is a covert terrorist assassin.

What did Ann Coulter do this week to earn this right to appear on the most trusted name in news?

She published a weekly syndicated column laced with violent-rhetoric in which she suggested than an Obama Presidency would result in the destruction of the U.S. by terrorists and--she joked about lynching Africa-Americans.

Is there nobody left at CNN who cares about this situation?  I mean...why is it that a pundit who jokes about lynching blacks is allowed to appear on the largest broadcast platform in America?

A word to the wise at CNN:

When Ann Coulter jokes about lynching blacks in her weekly syndicated column, pull her from whatever appearances she has scheduled for that week.

Better yet, just drop her altogether. 

Some Advice for CNN
One has to wonder how someone as well known as Ann Coulter--who relentlessly promotes her work--can continue to appear on CNN given the violence-tinged, racist, anti-Semitic, false-accusations she regularly publishers in her column?

The only possible answer is that nobody at CNN ever reads Ann Coulter's syndicated column.

If someone at CNN did read Coulter's column, they would never let her on the air out of respect for the reputation of the network, for the business interests of their sponsors, and for their viewers.

So, here is my advice to CNN each week, before allowing Ann Coulter to be a pundit on the network:

READ HER COLUMN.

Just read it. And do not just pass this task off to some unpaid high school intern.  Have a seasoned producer with a long term vested interest in the future of the network read Ann Coulter's column.  And then have a senior member of the  sales team read her column.

It comes out every week late Thursday or early Friday. And it is free to read.

Now, once everyone at CNN  has read Coulter's weekly column, ask a simple question:  Does Coulter joke about lynching black people in the column?  If the answer is "Yes," make a note of that.

Next question:  Does Coulter accuse members of the U.S. government of being terrorist plots to destroy America?  If the answer is "yes," again:  make a note of it.

Final question, does Coulter write something that falsely accuses vast numbers of Americans of high-crimes punishable by death?  ("Yes?" ditto: make a note).

OK.  So far so good.  Having done this homework, if it turns out that the answer is "Yes" to one or more of these question, CNN should send a note to Coulter that reads something like this:

Dear Ms. Coulter:

As part of our new policy with our pundits, before we put you on the show each week we are now reading your syndicated column.

Accordingly, this week we read your column and noticed that you (1) joked about lynching African-Americans and (2) suggested that a sitting Senator would bring about a terrorist invasion if elected president.

We realize that you are entitled to your views, but those views are offensive to 99% of our viewers and issue false charges of the highest order.  In the best interests of our viewers, our sponsors, and the network, we will not be having you on the show this week.

Best Wishes,

CNN

It's a nice enough letter, but of course--feel free to improvise.

As a warning, when you do this, Ann Coulter will turn around and accuse CNN of "censorship" and of violating her First Amendment rights.  And she will sound real convincing.

Do not fall for it.

At this point, ask yourself one question: Where in the Constitution does it say that the largest, most influential news channel in America is required to give their broadcast platform over to a right-wing pundit who uses violent-rhetoric, issues false accusations, and jokes about murdering African-Americans?

Here is the answer:  It doesn't say that anywhere.  Not in our constitution, anyway.

Nowhere in any part of the First Amendment does it say that Ann Coulter or anyone else has a right to go on CNN and accuse a presidential candidate of being a covert terrorist assassin, or accuse millions of American citizens of being traitors.

In fact, the First Amendment right, in this case, lies with the American public--the viewers--to not be forced to endure Coulter's kind of hateful, violent-language--at least without due warning.

Better yet, just leave Ann off the air for the week.

Or forever.

Coulter's Column: Jokes About Lynching
Of course, it is too late for CNN this week.  Coulter's went online Wednesday (as it always does), and she still did the rounds on CNN the next day.

But imagining that CNN had read her column before putting her on the air, this is what they would have found--a joke about lynching:

He said we are a country that sent "over 4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie." And Wright said it is a country "where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe." (Unless, like me, you do all your Klan-related murdering on "casual Fridays.")

The "he" referenced in the first line of the quote is Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  But that does not matter.  The paragraph includes a joke about lynching.

In the same column, Coulter suggests that an Obama presidency would lead to a terrorist invasion:

If it takes Obama 20 years to notice that his pastor is a traitorous, racist nut-job, it will probably take him his full term of office to realize that the U.S. has been invaded and subdued by al-Qaida. Let's just hope President Obama pays closer attention during national security briefings than he did during 20 years of the Rev. Wright's church services.

Now, in the same column, Coulter refers to Sen. Obama as 'B. Hussein Obama' as she always does in an ongoing effort to spread the false lie that a candidate for President is in fact a terrorist.

Of course, Coulter has every right to accuse anyone she wants of being a terrorist.  But should she get a seat  on CNN for doing that in her syndicated column?

No.

The fact that Coulter went on CNN this week and accused Sen. Obama of being a covert terrorist assassin is not irrelevant to this issue.  But the larger question is this:

Why did CNN allow Coulter on their network just days after she joked about lynching in her syndicated column?

Is CNN now aiming for the market that laughs at lynching jokes?  Doubtful.  Why, then?

The tens of millions of viewers who tune into CNN each hour of each day deserve an answer.

Speak Back
The fact is, we are the viewers of CNN--for now.  Somehow, by some mistaken calculation or simply by oversight, CNN has allowed Coulter to continue going on the air. What can be done?

Speak back to CNN at their feedback page.

Tell them that you are tired of turning on CNN and being accused of treason by their pundit Ann Coulter or of hearing her spin violent theories about a Presidential candidate being a covert terrorist assassin or--of knowing that one of CNN's pundits jokes about lynching in her column.

We are tired of it.

Frameshop: NEW BOOK LAUNCHES TODAY!!

Today is the big day!

My new book Outright Barbarous launches today, May 1.  Rather than just have it appear on Amazon with an imperceptible "blip," we are having an online book launch party over at Facebook. 

The "party" will last from 9am to as long as I can stay awake (well-past 9pm). During that time, I will be answering questions using the new Facebook chat function. 

I will also be rallying everyone to help drive Outright Barbarous to #1 on Amazon.com, today--1 on May 1.

Please stop by and thank you so much for your support!!

Book Launch: (link)

Amazon.com page: (link)

Frameshop: O'Reilly's Anti-Latino Rant

(Outright Barbarous arrives May 1!  Please stop by my online book launch "party"--help send it to number 1 on Amazon.com!!)

---

Remember this?

On April 5, 2007, FOX personality Bill O'Reilly unleashed a violent rant about Latino immigrants on live television

What we see in this video of O'Reilly is a key example of a right-wing pundit who uses violent-rhetoric to undermine political debate in the United States--in this case, violent-rhetoric used to create an atmosphere of hate and fear for Latinos.

A little over one year later, Sen. Hillary Clinton--who enjoyed wide scale endorsements from Latino leaders in a variety of early primary states--is sitting down for an interview with O'Reilly.

This is a grave error that risks lending the prestige of a prominent Democrat to a pundit infamous for violent-rhetoric and ideas.

O'Reilly's Culture Warrior Key Anti-Latino Text
While many people are familiar with O'Reilly's anti-immigrant rant from April 2007, few people realize that his book Culture Warrior (2006) is one of the biggest selling anti-Latino texts of recent years.

In Culture Warrior, O'Reilly argues that liberals in America are engaged in a cultural 'jihad' (p. 16) to take over the United States, and transform it into a repressive, immoral society.

As an example of what the United States would look like if liberals win the 'war' and transform America.  The chapter is called "The Conflict: America in the Year 2020?" (pp. 9-13) and takes the form of a fictional State of the Union address delivered by President "Gloria Hernandez," which begins like this:

My Fellow Americans, after much hard work, we have finally arrived at a point in our history where we can truly call the United States a diversified nation striving to be at peace with the world.  We are well on our way to completing our program of making America a more just, progressive society based upon--secular humanism!

[...]

Looking to the outside world, my administration will continue to fight for open borders and unfettered free trade, because the entire world community should have access to the prosperity that, by chance, has thrived in America.  We must be generous people and commit to developing one world where decisions are made by nations working in harmony for the good of all.  No longer can America expect to be the sole superpower on this earth.  That is counterproductive and selfish.  We are all the human race, inhabiting one planet.  We re all in this together, and exclusion can no longer be a policy for America. (B. O'Reilly, "The Conflict: America in the Year 2020?" from Culture Warrior, pp. 9-13)

O'Reilly's chapter is an extended caricature of a socialist future imposed on the United States by a Latina woman.  In his imaginary future, the election of a Latina represents the downfall of 'traditional' America and a total loss of the culture 'war' that O'Reilly describes in the rest of the book.  In O'Reilly's twisted vision,  the final outcome of liberal love for abortion, sexual depravity, seizure of private assets, elimination of educational standards, and abrogation of independent U.S. government--is a Latina being elected president.  "Gloria Hernandez," the reader easily concludes, is not just the opposite of everything "traditional" in O'Reilly's vision of America, she is the terrible outcome that will come to pass if O'Reilly's readers do not dedicate themselves to winning the culture 'war.'

In Outright Barbarous, I describe O'Reilly's vision of a Latina President in these terms:

The battle to stave off the Latinas-on-top nightmare of a Secular-Progressive future leads us to O’Reilly’s glibly sexist and bigoted vision of President Hernandez. She is the driving force behind O’Reilly’s vision of the future, where progressive “fanatics” who wage “political jihad” against the traditionalists. Flanked by Hollywood fanatics, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) leads the progressive army. O’Reilly brands the ACLU a “fascist organization” because “they seek to impose their worldview on America...by gaming the legal system” instead of by popular vote.

We need only read O'Reilly's own book to come to this very basic conclusion.

O'Reilly's Violent Rant, Backed By Violent Ideas
O'Reilly's role as a key right-wing pundit is rooted largely in his strategic use of three kinds of rhetorical violence.

First, O'Reilly blurs the line separating verbal and physical confrontation during his interviews.  Anyone who has seen The Factor has witnessed O'Reilly using this technique, and the video linked above is a perfect example. When we watch O'Reilly, his physical persona creates a particular kind of violent tension.  As his voice rises and his body leans into his guests personal space, the threat of an actual physical outburst seems imminent.  It is a calculated tension.

Second, O'Reilly couches his punditry in a self-stylzed image of a street fighter.  Culture Warrior,  for example, is as much a call to cultural arms as it is O'Reilly's attempt to describe himself as some kind of hair-trigger street fighter and inheritor of an Irish warrior spirit.  But the idea that his work is 'war,' is one that O'Reilly constantly brings to the fore of his commentary and writing.

Third, O'Reilly uses a vast majority of his political commentary to frame liberals as a dangerous threat to American citizens.  To achieve this, O'Reilly does much more than simply describe readers of liberal websites as 'Nazis.'  He renames them 'Secular-Progressives' or 'S-Ps' and then proceeds to equate these terms with supposed guerrilla programs to seize control of the United States.

All three of these techniques are combined with virtually unfettered access to broadcast television and large-production publishing.

In Sitting With O'Reilly, Clinton Legitimizes Anti-Latino Rage and Ideas
There are many reasons, politically, to sit for an Democrat to sit for an interview with FOX News--a self-professed advocate for the Republican Party, actively engaged for years in political broadcasting to preventing Democrats from being elected.  In the past, for example, many  Democratic leaders have accepted interviews in order to communicate important policy initiatives to parts of the electorate dominated in whole or in part by FOX News affiliates.  Just recently, Sen. Barack Obama sat for an interview with FOX News' Chris Wallace, and Sen. Clinton has done interviews with FOX News in the past.

Sitting for an interview with O'Reilly, however, can have no possible political outcome that does not include deep offense to the Latino community in this country, as well as anyone alarmed by the use of violent-rhetoric directed at Latinos by right-wing pundits.

Not only has Bill O'Reilly not retracted his violent rant from April 5, 2007, he uses a phrase in that rant--"sanctuary cities"--that directly attacks the policies of Sen. Clinton's own state of New York.

By sitting for an interview with him, Sen. Clinton is effectively rewarding Bill O'Reilly for violent, anti-Latino rage.  In addition, by sitting for an interview with O'Reilly without first explicitly denouncing Bill O'Reilly's anti-Latino, misogynistic caricature in Culture Warrior, Sen. Clinton risks lending her prestige and legitimacy to his hateful writings.

Bill O'Reilly is a key voice of a cohort of right-wing pundits who use violent-rhetoric to undermine American political debate, the result of which is a weakening of our Democracy.

Democratic candidates for President should denounce him and explain why, not walk into his studio and sit down.

FRAMESHOP: McCain Launders FOX's Lie (Hamas "Endorsement")

This weekend, FOX News and John McCain tried to convince voters that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was "endorsed" by Hamas--a lie created by FOX News.

Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant organization and political party listed by the U.S. Department of State as a foreign terrorist organization.  By suggesting to voters that terrorists support Sen. Obama, Sen. McCain embraced the long-term effort by right-wing media to define Democrats as supporters of foreign terrorist groups and, by extension, potential violent threats to the American people.

The real story, however, may be that Sen. McCain's campaign laundered a false FOX story by running it through his campaign, giving voters a false impression about the story's veracity.

On Apr 16 FOX News reported that Hamas had "endorsed" Sen. Obama. Two days later, Sen. McCain sent out a mass email echoing the FOX story.  FOX then reported McCain's letter and --voila! The original false story had become "real" news.

Frameshop: ABC Duped by Right-Wing Smear

ABC has become the first major network to be duped into treating a right-wing smear of  Sen. Barack Obama as a non-political news story.

Despite his own prior reporting in an Aug 2000 Salon.com piece--in which he deftly exposed the very same right-wing smear merchants behind the "Expose Obama" ad--ABC Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper has just published a piece on ABC.com that gives legitimacy to the blatant political agenda in the ad.

In order to succeed, right-wing political smears depend on mainstream journalists to treat their ad as factual, news stories to be evaluated on their merits, rather than smear campaigns that seek to defame political candidates and undermine political debate.

Seemingly aware of the shady politics behind the ExposeObama.com ad, Tapper's piece opens by telling readers that the new "ExposeObama" ad is the work of the right-wing smear merchant who made the infamous "Willie Horton" ad that smeared Michael Dukakis in 1988 and helped secure victory for President George H. W. Bush.  But this awareness seems to dissipate in the second half of the article, wherein Tapper then tells his readers that the ad is "factually correct."  He then goes on to explore the nuances of Sen. Obama's position on crime, the death penalty, gang violence, and African-American identity instead of laying out the full extent of the campaign to use racist propaganda to brand Sen. Obama as a potential violent threat to the American peopel. 

Tapper concludes by suggesting that the error in the ad is simply that it leaves out some context in the broader discussion of death penalty legislation in Illinois and then stating:

It's clear that Republicans plan on painting gang bangers as "urban terrorists" and plan on connecting Obama to them. Clearly some of that will prey on racial fears.

Will it work? Will Obama's pushback be enough?

(link)

In reality, the question of Sen. Obama's positions on the death penalty are irrelevant to a discussion of this ad, which is merely the latest right-wing effort to frame the leading Democratic candidate for President as a supporter of "terrorism," used in this ad as a euphemism for urban crime committed by African-American gangs.

In prior smears, Obama has been falsely accused of being a covert Islamic terrorist and a supporter of domestic political violence against the federal government.

Journalist Ignores Own Prior Article on "Will Horton" Ad
In an article published on Aug 25, 2000, Tapper exposed at great length the purely political agenda of the "Willie Horton" ad made by Floyd Brown and his associates.  In examining that ad, which purported to be about then Gov. Michael Dukakis' position on certain criminal statutes, Tapper focused on the true purpose of the campaign:  to destroy the character of a Democratic candidate for president.    In addition, Tapper argued that the people who made the Horton ad were so politically shady that merely by associating with them could have brought negative political consequences for President George W. Bush.

Furthermore, in that 2000 Salon.com piece, Tapper not only focused at length and described in depth the political motivations of the makers of the "Willie Horton" ad, but also presented a step-by step outline of the how the smear was launched.  This length passage from the  Salon article shows how effectively Tapper revealed the deceptive and racist agenda in the original ad from inception (emphasis mine):

To recap: "Weekend Passes" was produced by Carmen, and was broadcast in the fall of 1988. It featured the story of Horton, a convicted murderer granted a weekend prison furlough under then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis during which Horton escaped to Maryland and assaulted a man, Clifford Barnes, and repeatedly raped Barnes' wife, Angie. While then-Sen. Al Gore, who was a conservative Democrat and presidential candidate at the time, slammed Dukakis for his role in the Horton fiasco during the primaries, neither he, nor the original ad, mentioned Horton's race.

But almost immediately after it began running, as a Brown University study of the ad revealed, GOP consultant Larry McCarthy, who worked for National Security PAC, stealthily inserted a looming mug shot of Horton in a substitute version of the ad, revealing the convict to be -- ta da! -- an African-American. McCarthy said the photo of Horton used in the ad was "every suburban mother's greatest fear."

"Weekend Passes" meshed well with an official Bush campaign ad, "Revolving Doors" -- another spot critical of prison furlough programs. Produced by Bush media consultant Roger Ailes -- a former boss of McCarthy's -- with a helping hand from Atwater, the ad also portrayed Dukakis as soft on crime. But the official campaign ad never mentioned Horton's name; and, of the 19 "prisoners" making their way through the "revolving door" of the Massachusetts penal system, 16 were white, two black and one Latino.

Meanwhile, another independent, pro-Bush group, Committee for the Presidency, funded a $2 million speaking tour headlined by Clifford Barnes and Donna Fournier Cuomo, the sister of Horton's original murder victim, around the country. The Committee for the Presidency, formed by a Los Angeles GOP consultant with -- again -- no direct or provable ties to the Bush campaign, also broadcast two ads, one with Barnes claiming that "Mike Dukakis and Willie Horton changed our lives forever," the other with Cuomo saying that "Dukakis let killers out of prison ... Willie Horton stabbed my teenage brother 19 times." Though there was no evidence of any collusion between any of these independent groups and the Bush campaign, Atwater had told GOP officials, "By the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name."

They succeeded in that goal, though the Horton ad soon became notorious for, in the words of Annenberg School of Communications Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, creating "a black face for crime."

(link)

One can say, without reservation, that Tapper's above description of the "Willie Horton" smear ad--despite having been written 12 years after the fact--sets a very high standard for political journalism.  Not only does it lay out in plain sight the propaganda technique behind Floyd Brown's smear, but it states clearly that their goal was to create "a black face for crime" in order to scare white voters into not voting for Dukakis--and that it succeeded.

Fast forward eight years.

Another ad emerges, on virtually the same theme, made by the same smear merchant.

Tapper--now reporting for ABC news--treats it, arguably, with playful amusement. "Will it work? Will Obama's pushback be enough?" The ABC reporter--who so recently treated the smear campaign of this exact person as a political scourge in our political system, now treats the man's latest work as political entertainment.

What is missing from Tapper's ABC piece on the "Expose Obama" ad is precisely what made his Salon piece on "Will ieHorton" so powerful:  a sustained focus on the ad without being duped into evaluating the ad's policy claims on their merits.  Tapper's 2000 piece barely touched on Dukakis' positions, focusing almost entirely on the political danger the makers of the ad posed to the Presidential campaign of George W. Bush just by being associated with it. The story, Tapper explains, is not Dukakis position on crime, but the men who made an ad designed to whip up racist hatred to win an election.

Perhaps ABC has an article in the works in which they investigate the political candidates now benefiting from the racist, violent propaganda of Floyd Brown and his associates? One wonders.

For now, however, ABC has shown its willingness to reinforce the violent framing of the likes of Floyd Brown, rather than do their part to keep Floyd Brown's work from finding its way, yet again, to the nerve center of American politics.

For Jake Tapper's part, his reporting to date on the "Expose Obama" ad has fallen well short of the standard he once set for reporting on this subject for his former employer, Salon.com. 

Frameshop: Coulter Ups Violent Rhetoric on Obama

Although Ann Coulter originally achieved fame as a right-wing pundit by talking about President Clinton's penis on national TV, since 9/11 she has turned most of her attention to framing Democrats as terrorists.

During one TV spot in 2003, Coulter said, "Liberals...want there to be lots of 9/11s" (see Outright Barbarous, 74-75), followed by an entire book (Treason) in which she argued that the goal of Liberalism is the destruction of American civil society--the violent idea that frames most of Coulter's writing since 2002.

Lately, Coulter has focused her violent rhetoric at Sen. Barack Obama, in particular on spreading the defamatory idea that the sitting Senator and leading candidate for President is a terrorist. Coulter kicked this rhetoric into high-gear in her Apr 23 column which includes the line:

"Obama pals around with terrorists."

Frameshop: "Willie Horton" Style Ad Launched at Obama

Yet Another Right-Wing Violent Frame Launched in Effort To Stop Obama

The Republican marketing man behind the "Willie Horton" television ad that helped to end the presidential bid of Michael Dukakis has resurfaced in a new ad that uses World War II style propaganda techniques to create the false impression that Sen. Barack Obama supporets inner city gang violence and "urban terrorism."

The ad, sponsored by a political group called ExposeObama.com, is the latest effort by well-funded right-wing pundits and political groups to define a Democratic candidate for president as a violent threat to the American people.  Violent rhetoric from the right is an ongoing problem in American democracy that remains unchallenged by the media and by government oversight.

The new ad signifies a huge step into the center of the 2008 election for right-wing pundits and political groups pushing violent rhetoric and the fourth attempt by the right-wing to frame Sen. Obama in violent terms:

1. Smear Campaign implying Sen. Obama is a Muslim terrorism

2. Smear on Obama's minister implying that Obama may seek revenge for centuries of racism if elected

3. Smear of Obama supporter of 1970s-style domestic terrorism

4. Smear of Obama as enabler of gang violence described as "urban terrorism"

These attempts to define a sitting U.S. senator as a violent threat to the American people are a systematic effort to undermine the political debate in the 2008 Presidential election.