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A good piece from today's Variety!
Right wing goes goofy in spotlight
Conservatives liberal with verbal faux pas
By WILLIAM TRIPLETT
WASHINGTON -- Is there something in the right-wing water that's causing conservative commentators to cross the boundaries of taste and propriety? Within the past six weeks, Robert Novak swore and stomped off the CNN set; Tucker Carlson smiled and praised a fatal police attack on Greenpeace protesters; and Rush Limbaugh trashed a grieving mother camped outside President Bush's vacation ranch as a phony.
And on Monday, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson, on "The 700 Club," said the U.S. should assassinate the president of Venezuela, touching off a firestorm of criticism and objections. Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S. issued a statement condemning Robertson's advice, and even the State Dept. felt compelled to publicly deny it would ever consider taking it.
These comments were only the latest in what seems to be a series of egregious breaches of social discourse. Last May, Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck told listeners he'd like to kill "Fahrenheit 9/11" filmmaker Michael Moore, wondering if he should do it himself "or hire someone." And on Tuesday, an ABC/Disney-owned radio station in D.C. fired a talkmeister for refusing to apologize for calling Islam "a terrorist religion" during his show.
"The right is a little on edge these days because they have tied their fortunes so closely to George Bush and the war in Iraq, and neither is very popular right now," said Jim Naureckas, an exec with the liberal media organization Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. "This is the mark of a movement that is losing confidence, that would rather not have any debate or discussion," Naureckas continued. "In that mindset, fantasies of shooting people have a certain appeal."
<snip>
However, Jack Shafer, media critic for online magazine Slate, claims none of these comments are new or unusual. "I just think the level of scrutiny is way, way up now," he said. "The day when you could get away with saying something like this as an aside and still be thought of as credible is long gone. There are way too many watchers, too many bloggers. Too many people are paying attention, and there's a whole ethos on both the right and left that says, 'Hold them responsible for what they say!' "
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full article at www.variety.com
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