Joan Walsh runs the rubes: Yesterday morning, Salon’s Joan Walsh was back on her very high horse.
Few people have ever been quite so heroic. We were struck by what she said about the good folks at Politico.
This is the way Walsh began. We’ll include the pair of headlines, which she presumably didn’t write:
WALSH (9/10/13): You heard me: Rush Limbaugh is “a racist troll”Is Rush Limbaugh a racist troll? For various reasons, we wouldn’t be inclined to say that ourselves. We think it’s lazy politics—politics of the kind the plutocrats adore.
Mediaite and Politico think my saying that is news. Have they missed his 40 years of shameful racial stereotyping?
Politico and Mediaite are aghast that I called Rush Limbaugh a “racist troll” on “Politics Nation” with Al Sharpton on MSNBC Monday night. The immediate cause of my diagnosis was Limbaugh terming President Obama’s pitch for military intervention in Syria “Operation Shuck and Jive.” Or as Limbaugh said: “Bush had ‘Shock and Awe.’ We’re looking at ‘Shuck and Jive’ here. That’s what I’m going to name this. The Obama operation in Syria—‘Operation: Shuck and Jive’—because that’s what this is.”
That said, we aren’t concerned with Joan’s heroic denunciation of Limbaugh. We were struck by her claim that Politico and Mediate were “aghast” at her saintly conduct.
We’re sorry, but that isn’t true. Surely, Joan of Salon must have known it.
Was Politico aghast? Walsh linked us to this short blog post. For the record, the piece was written by media reporter Dylan Byers, not by “Politico.”
We’re sorry, by Byers gave no sign of being aghast at Walsh’s heroics. The saintly one was making that up, sanctifying herself in the process and treating her readers like rubes.
Rather plainly, Salon is now inventing a culture in which liberal politics consists almost solely in dropping R-, B-, S-, M- and H-bombs. In these ways, We The Good People fluff ourselves as we take The Bad People down.
Who knows? This culture may work out well in the end. But can you build a truly progressive politics by making bogus statements?
In this case, Joan chose to stoke the sense of tribal warfare, pretending that “Politico” was very upset with her heroic conduct. This is the way we liberals get dumb.
This is the way saints get over.
In search of the aghast: For the record, Josh Feldman wasn’t hugely “aghast” at Walsh either, although his tone at Mediaite differed from Byers’ a bit. In all honesty, no one was aghast at Joan, who was simply running the rubes of a Tuesday morning.
Joan Walsh is an overpaid cable hack. Can you build a progressive politics this way, by having the overlord TV stars toy with the pitiful rubes?
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