Good thing we've got a "free" press here.
Helen Thomas is out of work. She's an old lady. She bad-mouthed Israel and the Jews. She's out of work.
Pat Buchanan is still working. He said, "This has been a country built, basically, by white folks." Forgetting about 248 years of the official enslavement of millions of Africans upon whose backs and corpses the entire South was built; the nearly slave, forced labor of the Chinese who constructed, by hand, the transcontinental railroad; and the massive contributions of people of many colors throughout the 20th century, including all the non-Caucasian war dead -- none of these omissions cost Pat his job. But then, Buchanan isn't an old lady and he didn't say a single bad word about Israel or the Jews. He's still working.
Michael Savage is still working. You don't even want to know the things he's said. If you haven't heard him, and I told you, you wouldn't believe it. One thing you never heard him say was a bad word about Israel. Check him out. He's no Brad Pitt -- that's for sure -- but Savage isn't an old lady either. Michael Savage is still on the radio.
Jim Quinn too. He's working. Nice fella? Sure he is. Called Nancy Pelosi a "Bolshevik Bitch with a Mallet." Last time I checked the Speaker wasn't Jewish. And the House of Representatives was in Washington DC not Jerusalem. Jim Quinn's no old lady. So, his job is still there.
Neal Boortz is still working, on-the-air daily. He called welfare recipients "human parasitic garbage lining up to get their applications to loot." Boortz also said that Katrina survivors living in FEMA trailers shouldn't be allowed to vote. But he never said a bad word about Israel, never complained about Jews taking anyone's land, never said they should go "home" -- wherever that might be. Neal Boortz is not an old woman and he is still employed.
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity... all of them - The Glitter Boys. It doesn't matter what they've said, or about whom they've said it. You've seen each of them. Not the most attractive men in the bar, not even at closing time. But hardly old women. No, and they're all still working.
Archconservative media analyst William Kristol is still writing and still appearing on the FOX News cable channel. Still working. Still managing despite the difficulties he outlined when he said, "...white women are a problem. That's you know, we have to do deal with." He sure wasn't taking about himself. I don't mean Kristol's not white. He is. But he's not a woman, surely not an old woman and he never said the Jews or Israel was a problem "That's you know, we have to deal with."
The right-wing doesn't have a monopoly on secure employment in the American media. Keith Olbermann has a great job. He's arguably the most successful center/left or progressive working in today's mass media culture. Of course, aside from Rachel Maddow, he's the only one. What did Keith say about Sarah Palin? "That woman is an idiot!" He's still employed. Well, perhaps truth is an absolute defense, Then again, maybe not, if you're talking about Israel or Jews. Is Palin Jewish? I don't think so. Jewish girls are really smart, aren't they?
Even sports reporters on television get in on this one. The often delightful David Feherty, CBS-TV golf guru, went nuts one day and told a joke about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden together with a US soldier. "If you gave any US soldier a gun with two bullets in it," Feherty said, hitting into the proverbial out-of-bounds hazard, "there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death." David Feherty has a great accent, an interesting little beard and no one would mistake him for an old lady. Also, he hasn't had a bad thing to say about Israel or Jews -- not that we've heard on TV anyway. He's still there, still working, still doing CBS's golf coverage.
There was a time when people could take the position that the UN, together with the US and the European Powers, had no business establishing a country called Israel, in a part of the world that was neither the US or Europe, as a Jewish State for Jews who were mainly Europeans. It wasn't a popular position to take. It wasn't a position I would take. But there was a time when expressing that point of view, right here in the United States, wouldn't cost you your job. Not even if you were an old lady.
Times have changed. Helen Thomas is out of work. She's an old lady. She bad-mouthed Israel and the Jews. She's out of work.
Good thing we've got a "free" press here.