Why do right-wing pundits hate Rosie O'Donnell so much? Because she was the lone ardently progressive voice in corporate news programming.
Well, maybe. But...
I would just like to state, for the record, that it is not necessary to be right-wing to hate Rosie O'Donnell. Sometimes it's just a matter of having good taste.
And as much as I take it as a given anything that annoys lying ideologues with anger management problems like Sean Hannity or black-hearted Republicans like Joe Scarborough, is good...
...well, notice something. That article, which is 1, 965 words long, was written to laud O'Donnell for being "a consistently progressive, feminist voice." Yet Pozner writes-
I didn't always agree with O'Donnell (all feminists don't all think alike, after all). I was certainly disappointed by her over-the-top 9/11 conspiracy theories, and her indefensible, racist mocking ("ching chong, ching chong") of Asian accents. I was also surprised that she defended Don Imus in the wake his "nappy-headed hos" controversy. Sure, comedians tend to stick together, but Imus hasn't been spewing "humorous" hate speech in some dank basement with a two-drink minimum -- this was a guy who admitted hiring a producer to do "nigger jokes" on a show featuring political and journalistic bigwigs.
-before going on to conclude that O'Donnell's "departure [from morning television] will leave a gaping hole."
Yet the number of times the article quotes anything she actually said is, exactly, twice. And one of those is, as above, "ching chong, ching chong."
The other statement this strong, progressive, feminist voice is credited with making is:
"I'm fat and I'm gay"
Whoo!
It seems to me that if Ms. O'Donnell were really such an important voice, then surely anyone, but especially someone writing an article in defense of her would have been able to find evidence to support that in her actual statements.
Instead, what this article says (and illustrates) many times over is...people like Hannity and Scarborough are lying, black-hearted Republican ideologues with anger management problems. Which is true. But it doesn't make Rosie O'Donnell herself worth any more.
This is the same "okay, looked at on the merits, X is shit but it's all we have so we'll keep swigging it down like champaigne" thinking that gives us "The L Word" and Alanis Morissette.
2 comments:
Talk about selective excerpting... this blog post makes little sense if you read the actual American Prospect article. The author doesn't quote Rosie directly, but she references a large slew of issues that Rosie spoke about and from what perspective. If you know anything about journalism, you know that journalists often have to paraphrase to get in as much information as they can. Because they're usually long, quotes are used sparingly, when paraphrasing won't do.
Here's what the author actually said about Rosie's statements on The View:
[from the American Prospect]
Over the past year, O’Donnell has brought a consistently progressive, feminist voice to ABC’s kaffeeklatsch and, in doing so, allowed daily television viewers entree into discussions wholly missing from the mainstream media lineup. She burst onto the public stage like a lefty tornado, loud and insistent, using her daytime post like a bullhorn at a peace march. (Who else on network television would have allowed actress Olympia Dukakis to declare that “The world can’t wait to drive out the Bush regime” during an interview about her latest romantic comedy?)
O’Donnell has regularly denounced the Iraq war, blasted government-sanctioned torture, and spoken out adamantly against the president not only for the war but for what she considers his racist failure during Hurricane Katrina, his corrupt ties to corporate string-pullers, and his stoking of anti-Americanism abroad. And she says this at a time when opponents of the Bush administration are still being branded “un-American.” Indeed, on Scarborough Country last month, guest Danny Bonaduce actually suggested that, “If anybody had a rope thick enough, I think that Rosie should be strung up for treason.”
But unlike MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, whose ballyhooed liberal ire is mostly targeted at Bush’s war, O’Donnell has also been an outspoken advocate for women’s reproductive freedom, gay rights, gun control, mental health care, and a variety of other issues rarely discussed on TV from a feminist perspective. Besides, have you ever heard a prominent media figure declare, “I’m fat and I’m gay” in the same blithe manner as she trades parenting tips or ponders who should be booted off American Idol?
[end of Prospect excerpt]
My point was, just because I probably agree with O'Donnell's perspective on most if not all issues, doesn't mean I think she was the best spokeswoman for those issues.
Nor do I think being willing to declare "I'm fat and I'm gay!" makes her one.
If she had said anything worth quoting, the writer would have quoted her.
She didn't. That says it all.
Post a Comment