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You are here: Home / None dare call it racism

None dare call it racism

by DougJ|  March 23, 20104:17 pm| 102 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity, Good News For Conservatives

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I generally like Tom Shales, the tv critic for the Post, but there’s no excuse for his essentially racist screed against Christiane Amanpour:

Supporters of Israel have more than once charged Amanpour with bias against that country and its policies. A Web site devoted to criticism of Amanpour is titled, with less than a modicum of subtlety, “Christiane Amanpour’s Outright Bias Against Israel Must Stop,” available via Facebook.

Amanpour grew up in Great Britain and Iran. Her family fled Tehran in 1979 at the start of the Islamic revolution, when she was college age. She has steadfastly rejected claims about her objectivity, telling Leslie Stahl last year relative to her coverage of Iran: “I am not part of the current crop of opinion journalists or commentary journalists or feelings journalists. I strongly believe that I have to remain in the realm of fact.”

Shorter Tom Shales: anyone from Iran cannot be trusted to discuss Israel impartially.

Anti-Semite (or is he a self-hating Jew, it’s hard to keep track) Glenn Greenwald notes:

Wolf Blitzer is Jewish, a former AIPAC official, and — to use Shales’ smear-campaign formulation — has frequently “been accused” of pro-Israel bias; should CNN bar him from covering those issues? David Gregory is Jewish, “studies Jewish texts with a top Jewish educator in Washington,” and has conducted extremely sycophantic interviews with Israel officials. Should his background be cited as evidence of his pro-Israel bias? The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg is routinely cited as one of America’s most authoritative sources on the Middle East, notwithstanding numerous accusations of pro-Israel bias and, even more so, his choice to go enlist in the IDF and work in an Israeli prison where Palestinians are encaged; do those actions (far beyond his mere ethnicity) call into question his objectivity as a journalist such that The Atlantic should bar him from writing about that region? Jake Tapper — who Shales suggests as an alternative to Amanpour and who I also previously praised as a choice — is Jewish; does that raise questions about his objectivity where Israel is concerned?

It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab anti-Persian racism is still so acceptable.

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102Comments

  1. 1.

    cleek

    March 23, 2010 at 4:19 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab racism is still so acceptable.

    really ?

    how many years did it take for anti-Japanese racism to finally fade away after Pearl Harbor? 30, 40 years ?

  2. 2.

    SGEW

    March 23, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab racism is still so acceptable.

    . . . Really?

    ETA: ‘Course, th’ mighty cleek got there first. Also:

    how many years did it take for anti-Japanese racism to finally fade away after Pearl Harbor? 30, 40 years ?

    How about “never”? Does “never” work for you? Anti-asian racism is also pretty widely unnoticed in the media.

  3. 3.

    Bulworth

    March 23, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    I was reading this column this morning and I kept waiting for Shales to offer either some substance to this critique or provide some, ahem, balance, but it never came. Very strange column.

    And while we’re at it, I can’t really figure out why our national leaders are compelled to show up and prostrate themselves at the annual AIPAC meetings. It’s embarassing. Really.

  4. 4.

    cervantes

    March 23, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    Iranians are not Arabs. Just sayin’.

  5. 5.

    Justin

    March 23, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    Read his Washington Post chat from today, Dougj. The guy just seems clueless. He received a lot of criticism about his article and his basic response was, “what did i say?”

    And I’m not a fan of Tom Shales. The Wapo needs to move on.

  6. 6.

    Jill

    March 23, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    Iranians are not Arabs.

  7. 7.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    March 23, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab racism is still so acceptable.

    Doug, you’re pretty smart. I seriously doubt that this is a mystery to you.

    Let’s put it this way: It’s probably not due to the considerable Arab ownership of American media, do you think? I mean, Casey Kasem notwithstanding?

    Or could it be the overwhelming tilt of our entertainment stream to portray “terrorists” as Norwegians?

    Hmm. Hmm, hmm, hmm.

  8. 8.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    @cervantes: Yes, but it is the same racism that discriminates against everyone in the region, and while Doug knows that Iranians are not Arabs, most of our population does not.

    Dough, it’s because Arabs worship a rock, instead of a cross.

  9. 9.

    Martin

    March 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    Yeah, this is just a rehash of what I said last night, but apparently Amanpour is biased because she asserts that Muslims are people. You just can’t get away with that in many quarters.

  10. 10.

    Punchy

    March 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    Not seeing the racist part, Doug. Methinks you may have overshot this one, this time.

  11. 11.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    March 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    But Jake Tapper is Pro-Idiot.

  12. 12.

    cleek

    March 23, 2010 at 4:24 pm

    @SGEW:
    yeah, “never” works, too. sadly.

    at least these days we’re more conscious of it. and i think most people usually try to avoid it in polite company.

    i just keep thinking of Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” … that would not be OK, today.

  13. 13.

    sidereal

    March 23, 2010 at 4:24 pm

    Iranian = Persian != Arab

    Not that those engaging in the racism are hip to the distinction.

  14. 14.

    Morbo

    March 23, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab racism is still so acceptable.

    Is it really?

    Sort of OT: I know I see racism in everything because I’m a liberal, but in the course of 24 hours I’ve had two people make the food stamps for T-bones argument (“I don’t want my tax dollars paying for brothas’ with 8 bullet wounds trips to the emergency room.” “Why can all the poor blacks and illegal aliens afford cell phones but I can’t?”). I wasn’t particularly surprised to hear it from either person, but the timing struck me a bit.

  15. 15.

    PeakVT

    March 23, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-ArabMooslim racism is still so acceptable.

    Because “they” attacked us on 9/11. Or so the right-wing narrative would have us believe.

  16. 16.

    cervantes

    March 23, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    If Doug knows that Iranians aren’t Arabs he should say so. And he should not imply that they are, because it’s offensive to people to talk about them so ignorantly.

    Iranians are Persians. They speak Farsi. They are not Arabs. You can be prejudiced against Arabs and Iranians, but that doesn’t make them the same.

  17. 17.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    @Punchy:

    I think it is racism to say that all Persians hate Israel so much they can’t be rational about it.

  18. 18.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    I know Persians are not Arabs, I just typed too quickly. Thanks for the correction.

  19. 19.

    freelancer

    March 23, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    @DougJ:

    I like Wonkette’s zinger Re: this issue.

    “You are now all anti-semites for having read this”.

  20. 20.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    @cervantes:

    Thanks. I fixed it. I understand the distinction.

  21. 21.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    March 23, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    @cervantes:

    You can be prejudiced against Arabs and Iranians

    Well, of course. And what would they have in common?

  22. 22.

    ChrisZ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    The whole pro-Israel/Zionism thing is truly baffling to me.

  23. 23.

    Short Bus Bully

    March 23, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    But Tom Shales has LOTS of Arab friends!

    No wait, that would make him an obvious terrorist, right? Shit, I suck at this game…

  24. 24.

    Jude

    March 23, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    Not seeing the racist part, Doug. Methinks you may have overshot this one, this time.

    It’s racist in the sense that many people in America perceive “Arab/Muslim” as a race. Race is, after all, a social construct. So if a large proportion of the population thinks Muslim=Arab=different race, then they’ve just created and reified a category.

    There’s no room for differentiating, say, Uighurs, Persians, Pashtun, or any other ethnicity that might be predominantly Muslim. Muslim=Arab=different=enemy.

    Sure, it’s ignorant and foolish, but what about racism is ever otherwise?

  25. 25.

    Randy P

    March 23, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    I generally like Tom Shales, the tv critic for the Post,

    I don’t. I lived in the DC area for 17 years and was a daily WaPo subscriber for most of that time. I’m still mad at his completely clueless panning of a great sci-fi show, “Earth 2”. Clueless not only about the show but about sci-fi in general.

    And I was also irritated that the Post would have him review political events that were on TV (the State of the Union for instance) as if they were fictional entertainment.

    He’s at his best when he’s being snarky about some crappy new show, and I enjoyed those columns when it was about a show I couldn’t care less about. Which, fortunately, was 95% of the TV landscape.

  26. 26.

    salacious crumb

    March 23, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    Amanpour’s husband is Jewish as well. so now what..will he be accused of boning an anti-Semite?

  27. 27.

    Punchy

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    @DougJ: Unless I am totally misreading your blockquote, that’s not Shales’ argument, it’s an assertion from unnamed supporters of Israel.

    Is it a dick move to quote unnamed strawmen “supporters”? Yep. But not sure that Shales himself believes any of this.

  28. 28.

    Redshirt

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    To add to our semantic games, aren’t Arabs Semites? Thus discrimination against an Arab is also Antisemitism?

  29. 29.

    thomas Levenson

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    I was prepared to say that the quote above didn’t seem too bad, but had the sense to click through to Shales column, which is a travesty, truly a joke, were it not so bad on its merits and so discrediting just as a work of craft.

    His source for complaints within ABC? Some industry newsletter quoting anonymous complaints. His argument that she is the wrong choice — right wing idiots call her biased and she’s a celebrity from CNN.

    Dude, I mean seriously. TV news is a celebrity business. Sunday talk is all about personality…and btw, dude, Amanpour is actually good at her job, one which is vastly more difficult than sitting in a chair on Sunday morning throwing softballs.

    If “professionals” inside ABC deserve the job, then why did Stephanopolis not get reamed on this score? How about littlest Russ. Or These-Shoes-Are-To-Big-For-Walking Gregory.

    This not simply a hopelessly biased, reflexively pro-Israeli-right, anti Persian (not Arab) nonsense. It’s just complete crap reporting on a beat he calls his own.

    I guess the mold from the Hiatt’s side of the paper is spreading faster than I had hoped.

  30. 30.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    @Jude:

    There’s no room for differentiating, say, Uighurs, Persians, Pashtun, or any other ethnicity that might be predominantly Muslim. Muslim=Arab=different=enemy.

    Yes, I think Shales take is Iranian=Muslim=Israel-hater.

  31. 31.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    will he be accused of boning an anti-Semite?

    Only if he posts at Balloon-Juice.

  32. 32.

    Jude

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    Amanpour’s husband is Jewish as well. so now what..will he be accused of boning an anti-Semite?

    He’s obviously a traitor to his people, as any children born of the union would not be Jewish.

    Yes, I’m being a smartass.

  33. 33.

    Jules

    March 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    @Short Bus Bully:

    But Tom Shales has LOTS of Arab friends!

    He even lets them use his bathroom!

  34. 34.

    tballou

    March 23, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    What a dope! I thought Amanpour was an inspired choice for This Week, esp. after years of fecklessness from Stephanopolous.

  35. 35.

    Taylor

    March 23, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    [Posted also as a comment on Greenwald’s blog.]

    I got an insight into Shales’ worldview when, on the basis of his glowing review in the Kaplan Post, I bought McCarry’s Shelley’s Heart in the mid-90s.

    For anyone fortunate enough not to have read this piece of Nixonian propaganda that pretends it is satire, it is about a Thomas Kunstler character, who is depicted as a wholly unscrupulous and even sordid villain of the left, plotting to take over the US government.

    It is a book that should be on the shelves of all Fox News employees, down to the caricaturing of anyone on the left as anti-American, while the heroes on the right make frequent references to Good Old Nixon the Commie Hunter.

    After making my way through this right-wing propaganda, I learned quite a lot about Mr Thomas Shales.

    Shelley’s Heart is also a shockingly misogynistic book. Women are either sex objects or obedient housewives.

    Perhaps there are some unstated reasons for Shales’ opposition to Amanpour that he would like to share with us?

  36. 36.

    PeakVT

    March 23, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    The anti-Iranian bias exists because most people are unaware of Iranian history before 1979.

  37. 37.

    salacious crumb

    March 23, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    and another thing: I never liked Christine Amanpour. I don’t watch any show on which she is now, but I know that he documentaries on the Middle East were very superficial and not very deep, which indicated to me that she herself never wanted to ask any hard questions lest it be controversial, especially on Israels treatment of the Palestinians. She never asked in any questions in the run up to the war with Iraq. anybody who didn’t ask those hard questions when it was their duty to do so is either a coward or pro-Israel/Pro-war or both

  38. 38.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    @Punchy:

    I think throwing in “she’s from Iran” with “unnamed sources say she hates Israel” so casually is racist.

    Look, if someone wrote “so-and-so is black” and “unnamed sources say he likes to chase white women and eat watermelon”, that would be called racist. Similarly for “so-and-so is Jewish” and “unnamed sources say he’s never paid retail”. Or “so-and-so is Irish” and “unnamed source say he likes his Jameson’s”. And so on.

  39. 39.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    March 23, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    I think where this comes from is Amanpours long outspokenness and passion about Genocide in the world. Not just for Arabs, or Persians, but for any and all races and religions. She is and has been upfront about this and called out other journalists to be the same in cases of mass murder, which she has seen the evidence of in many cases and countries over the years..

    On “Scream Bloody Murder,” Christiane Amanpour takes up perhaps the hardest subject of all: genocide. In the two-hour documentary, she examines how the world has fallen short of stopping genocide since the Holocaust.

    The program looks at atrocities in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. Amanpour balances the horror by focusing on stirring figures who spoke out — and spotlighting the way the Internet is changing the way the world responds. The program is timely: President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for United Nations ambassador, Susan Rice, is a fierce advocate for taking action against genocide.

    A highlight is Amanpour challenging President Bill Clinton on “constant flip-flops” on Bosnia. He was furious, and that’s the point. “Scream Bloody Murder” is about speaking truth to power. And Amanpour’s stirring, instructive style is the main reason to enrol in this difficult history course.

    I still remember her punking Bill Clinton on national teevee over Bosnia, and his terse response. But he has said later, I believe, that she prompted him to reconsider his flip flops on the issue.

    I love Christiane Amanpour and her passion, and anyone who attacks her for being biased can DIAF, after I punch them in the neck. She is a world treasure.

  40. 40.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    @salacious crumb:

    Jamie Rubin is a self-hating Jew. That one’s obvious.

  41. 41.

    taylormattd

    March 23, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    Iranians aren’t Arab, but your point is a very good one about this kind of racist shit.

  42. 42.

    Bruce

    March 23, 2010 at 4:40 pm

    Thanx for this doug!
    And just to note, Iranian is a nationality…persian is an etnicity…iranians can be persian, kurd, balouch and arab…but still…thanx man! U rock!

  43. 43.

    MikeJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    Iranians are Persians. They speak Farsi

    Isn’t Farsi just Persian for Persian? Isn’t this sentence much like, “Parisians are French. They speak français.” ?

  44. 44.

    Thlayli

    March 23, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    @DougJ:

    I think Shales take is Iranian=Muslim=Israel-hater.

    Of course, Amanpour is not a Muslim. Hence the whole “leaving the country after the revolution” thing.

  45. 45.

    Honus

    March 23, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    @cervantes:
    True, in fact I believe Iranians are technically aryans. But most people don’t know and just assume they are arabs since they are brown, come from the middle east and live on top of a lot of our oil.
    As far as anti-arab racism, as a person (hillbilly) of arab descent (my mother’s parents emigrated from Lebanon in 1905) who doesn’t look particularly brown (my dad was german from Pennsylvania, so I’m only somewhat swarthy, with regular nose) you wouldn’t believe the comments about arabs I’ve endured my entire 55 years, but most especially the last ten or so. Stuff they’d never say about Germans who we fought against in two major wars just last century. I’m just glad Frank Zappa, George Halas and Michael Debakey weren’t around to hear the stuff they said about Helen Thomas last year.

  46. 46.

    Ash Can

    March 23, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Is it possible that, religious/cultural issues aside, Shales has buddies among the ABC newsies and is feeling their pain at being passed over for a plum position by an outsider, who, to add insult to injury, is non-white (enough), non-male, and, worst of all, markedly better at their line of work than they are?

  47. 47.

    freelancer

    March 23, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    Hey, DougJ

    In case you didn’t know.

    Iranians aren’t Arabs.

    Just sayin’.

  48. 48.

    Bulworth

    March 23, 2010 at 4:47 pm

    I thought this part of his column was almost as interesting as his weird complaint about her “bias”:

    “In a way, Amanpour, scheduled to leave CNN after 18 years of international coverage and take over the program in August, could be seen as the opposite of the perfect candidate. “This Week” deals mainly in domestic politics and inside-the-Beltway palaver, an area where Amanpour is widely considered to deficient. Consider: Whenever CNN has thrown one of its big election-night, convention, or presidential debate spectaculars, drafting nearly every living staff member to appear, Amanpour has had a conspicuously low profile. ”

    As if it might be a bad idea to do something a little different from the politics-as-sports-entertainment shows on the other networks.

  49. 49.

    Citizen_X

    March 23, 2010 at 4:47 pm

    @Martin:

    Muslims are people

    Whoa whoa whoa! That’s just crazy talk.

  50. 50.

    geg6

    March 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm

    I lurve Christiane Amanpour and was even considering ending my longstanding boycott of the Sunday morning bobblefests just to watch her.

    Guess big, fat, disgusting blob of assholery, Tom Shales, doesn’t want me to end my boycott.

    Oh, well. Too fucking bad for Tom Shales. What do I care what this asshole thinks about anything. His list for the best tv shows of 2009 include Tina Fey, Barack Obama, and Winston Churchill.

    Hey, Tom! Those are people, not tv shows!

  51. 51.

    RobNYNY1957

    March 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm

    It seems to me that she has every reason to dislike Moslem extremism.

  52. 52.

    Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill

    March 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm

    Doug: Thanks for the correction, and pointing this out.

    This is racism, but we’re used to racism being words like “sand nigga” and acts like what a KKK member might employ, not the kind of more “civilized” put-downs Shales employs, here. That he uses nice words doesn’t detract for him being a total asshole over this, frankly.

  53. 53.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 4:51 pm

    @Thlayli:

    Nevertheless, I think that’s where he’s going with it.

  54. 54.

    Citizen_X

    March 23, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    @cleek:

    how many years did it take for anti-Japanese racism to finally fade away after Pearl Harbor? 30, 40 years ?

    Um, unfortunately, you might not want to refer to that in the past tense.

  55. 55.

    Uloborus

    March 23, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    I’m going to weigh in on the semantics, too, because I think there really is an important point to be made here. Educated people know that the population of Iran is mostly Persians.

    This fact has almost no bearing on the racism argument. The racists don’t know, or don’t care. The vast majority of the US population just plain doesn’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the media narrative treat the population of the Middle East as anything but one homogeneous race except in a few arguments about the Kurds.

    To way, way, way too many people everyone from Morocco to Pakistan is an Arab Muslim. Even a lot of people who know it’s not true *feel* that it’s true. It’s the Narrative, the Common Wisdom, the understanding of the collective unconscious. That it’s stupidly false isn’t important, because for racism, we’re talking about what they believe.

  56. 56.

    RareSanity

    March 23, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Whoa whoa whoa! That’s just crazy talk.

    LOL…

    @RobNYNY1957:

    It seems to me that she has every reason to dislike Moslem extremism.

    Here we go…

  57. 57.

    Toast

    March 23, 2010 at 4:58 pm

    I’m not defending Shales, but since when is “Iranian” a race?

  58. 58.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 23, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    Her family fled Tehran in 1979 at the start of the Islamic revolution

    Um, if her family _left_ Iran at the start of the revolution, doesn’t that indicate that she might _not_ have a lot of sympathy for Islamic fundamentalism? Would Shales pass along charges that someone whose family left Cuba in 1959 was probably a Communist? Seems like the media doesn’t usually treat exile communities as though they’re supporters of the nation they fled.

  59. 59.

    thomas Levenson

    March 23, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    @Ash Can: Yes.
    SASQ

  60. 60.

    RareSanity

    March 23, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    OT:

    The markets hate Obama and his policies, especially HCR:

    Stocks surge to 18-month highs

    Wait…

  61. 61.

    Bulworth

    March 23, 2010 at 5:04 pm

    Shales also opts to give a certain conservative media-criticism center more attention than it deserves.

  62. 62.

    Bobby Thomson

    March 23, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    I think the racism charge is a bit of a stretch and I think you think so, too, or else you wouldn’t have used the qualifier “essentially.” Maybe, maybe not.

    However, having clicked through and read the column, I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that Shales is a moran. Exhibit A:

    As if outside opposition to Amanpour weren’t enough, ABC News is practically in a state of internal revolt over her selection, according to such industry-watchers as TV Newser, which quotes ABC insiders as resenting Westin’s hiring of a highly paid celebrity interloper for a job that many thought would go to White House correspondent Jake Tapper or to “Nightline” co-anchor Terry Moran. Either would have made a better “This Week” anchor, and neither would put ABC News in the position of having to rationalize spending big bucks on an superstar while making brutal cutbacks in the division.

    Anyone who thinks that Amanpour is outclassed in anything having to do with journalism by an idiot who got his break in journalism by having preceded Bill Clinton as Monica Lewinski’s boyfriend is . . . not very smart.

  63. 63.

    16 shells from a thirty aught six

    March 23, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    If we want to get really nerdy about it, Farsi is part of the Indo-European language family and thus pretty distant from Arabic, in spite of the script.

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab anti-Persian racism is still so acceptable.

    I completely understand Persian anti-Americanism. So did my old roommate Cyrus who had a picture of Muhammed Mossadegh in the front of his binder. He liked America and Americans a great deal, the government… um, somewhat less so.

  64. 64.

    Xenos

    March 23, 2010 at 5:08 pm

    @Honus:

    True, in fact I believe Iranians are technically aryans.

    Iran=Aryan. ‘Persia’ comes from identifying the country with some of its rulers, who came from Fars and were known as Farsi. Later folded in under Indo-European categories. But Iran/Aryan is a racial or national category, not a linguistic one.

    Arabs are Semites – which is a sub-family of the Afro-asiatic. As are Akkadians, Phoenicians, Ancient Egyptians, Amharics (Abyssinians), Aramaic speaking Jews, Copts, and Bedouin, and even the Maltese. And Hebrew-speaking people.

    So do antisemites hate the Maltese?

  65. 65.

    Xenos

    March 23, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    @Thlayli:

    Of course, Amanpour is not a Muslim.

    Yeah, I guess her first name is a bit of a giveaway.

  66. 66.

    Little Dreamer

    March 23, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    @Bulworth:

    And while we’re at it, I can’t really figure out why our national leaders are compelled to show up and prostrate themselves at the annual AIPAC meetings. It’s embarassing. Really.

    Because Israel was named in the buy-bull, of course!

  67. 67.

    rob!

    March 23, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    I think Amanpour is a great choice, certainly better than picking someone from the Stephanopolous/Gregory/Blitzer school of CW-obsessed idiocracy and McCain-fondling.

    That said, I gave up on ABC permanently a few years ago, so I won’t be watching This Week no matter who is hosting.

  68. 68.

    TR

    March 23, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab anti-Persian racism is still so acceptable.

    Because the Iranians struck us on 9/11. Anyone who watches Glenn Beck knows that simple fact.

  69. 69.

    Little Dreamer

    March 23, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    @TR:

    And those people from Saudia Arabia are our best friends and super-special oil suppliers.

    ;)

  70. 70.

    slag

    March 23, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    @RareSanity:

    OT:
    The markets hate Obama and his policies, especially HCR:
    Stocks surge to 18-month highs
    Wait…

    BREAKING from Fox News: Stock Market Surges are One of the Seven Signs!

  71. 71.

    Svensker

    March 23, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    @cleek:

    how many years did it take for anti-Japanese racism to finally fade away after Pearl Harbor? 30, 40 years ?

    What, so you’re saying that there was no anti-Muslim (Middle Eastern Muslim) racism until 9/11? That before that the fact that the word “Palestinian” was coupled only with the word “terrorist” was an odd coincidence? And Abe Foxman and Co. only started saying mean things about Arabs after 9/11? Perhaps the majority of white-bread Americans didn’t start hating “Arabs” until they became aware of “them” on 9/11, but the groundwork had been laid long before then.

    Also, while there may have been some general anti-Asian racism in the non-Asian population in the States in the 60s and 70s, I really don’t think it was a major thing, certainly not to the point where it affected our foreign policy. I went to an inner city school in Seattle where WASPs were a minority, and I don’t remember any anti-Asian racism at all. In fact, the Asian kids tended to be the most popular (in general, obviously), completely integrated (there weren’t any Asian cliques that I remember) and were often the class officers.

    Blah blah blah. I don’t think your Pearl Harbor analogy is good.

  72. 72.

    Mark S.

    March 23, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    @Bulworth:

    “This Week” deals mainly in domestic politics and inside-the-Beltway palaver, an area where Amanpour is widely considered to deficient.

    1. Inside the beltway punditry is not that difficult, considering idiots like Tim Russert could do it.

    2. Isn’t this generally a criticism of these gasbags, that they spend way too much time analyzing the horse race aspects of policies and not giving their viewers any information on the pros and cons of the various policies themselves?

  73. 73.

    Mark S.

    March 23, 2010 at 5:30 pm

    @rob!:

    McCain-fondling

    I’d nominate this as a new tag, but then Balloon Juice may lose its PG rating.

  74. 74.

    Bret

    March 23, 2010 at 5:31 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab anti-Persian racism is still so acceptable.

    Simple. They’re brown. Israelis are white, typically. Next question.

  75. 75.

    ellaesther

    March 23, 2010 at 5:31 pm

    Not to mention that Wolf Blitzer got his start at the same paper I got my start at, the Jerusalem Post. And look how well it’s worked out for both of us!

    /is not bitter.

    Recently the left side of the Jewish blogosphere got into a froth because the NY Times’s Ethan Bronner’s son joined the IDF. I sent exactly one email to my fellow lefties on this, asking one of the folks who was really spear-heading the froth to lay.the.fuck.off. (Only I believe what I said was “Honestly. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”)

    I was really sorry the Times pulled him out of Israel. It’s nonsense. If one were to have to recuse oneself from covering every event in which one might have some kind of personal interest, we would have to import aliens to cover the news for us. And after they’d been here for five years, we’d accuse them of “going native” (as the phrase goes in American journalism. Or once went, at any rate), and look for new aliens.

    The biggest problem my fellow lefties had with Bronner was that he didn’t always agree with them, or write/report to their tastes. The found a handy scapegoat and were off to the races.

    If people do good work, they do good work. Full stop. Some things are are conflicts of interest, but most stuff is just life.

  76. 76.

    ChrisZ

    March 23, 2010 at 5:33 pm

    @Svensker:

    Are you suggesting that anti-Japanese racism did not exist before Pearl Harbor? I don’t think that was a really good place to try to make a distinction.

  77. 77.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    March 23, 2010 at 5:34 pm

    Shales is a typical Postie: clueless and deaf to any criticism.

    He’s also mysogonistic as hell. That comes out in his chats.

    Plus, he is one of the few people on the planet who still likes SNL. That tells you something about his veracity.

    He’s always been an asshole, even by critics standards of assholishness.

  78. 78.

    Ash Can

    March 23, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    @Mark S.: You mean the PG rating that got skull-fucked ages ago?

  79. 79.

    SRW1

    March 23, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    Christiane Amanpour – a chick, tends to be irreverent and is not a member of AIPAC. What’s not to hate?

    I’d say she’s an inspired choice. Enough to give This Week another look after the two Georges made it a waste of a good hour. Will be interesting to see whether George W remains a regular member of the panel and how Christiane handels His Stiltidness.

  80. 80.

    Bobby Thomson

    March 23, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    @Svensker: Good point. A good friend of mine of partial Arab descent had his name legally changed because of all the racist crap he had to put up with, and that was 20 years ago.

    Not to mention that pre-9/11, probably the worst flareup of anti-Arab bigotry occurred during the Iranian hostage crisis. To your average American bigot, there’s no difference. Hell, those idiots were going after Sikhs in September 2001.

  81. 81.

    DougJ

    March 23, 2010 at 5:41 pm

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage:

    Halperin loves SNL too. What is it with these pseudo-Villagers?

  82. 82.

    Ash Can

    March 23, 2010 at 5:44 pm

    @ellaesther:

    /is not bitter.

    Hey, that’s OK. Blitzer and I went to the same grad school, and look at me. I’m just a stay-at-home mom and hausfrau. Granted, my husband has a decent job, my son is adorable, we have a great classic bungalow in a quiet, pleasant Chicago neighborhood…

    Ya know, on second thought, hey, Wolfie! I win!

  83. 83.

    Cain

    March 23, 2010 at 5:44 pm

    It’s hard to be racist against those who are arguably some of the most beautiful people on the planet.

    cain

  84. 84.

    Svensker

    March 23, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    @ChrisZ:

    Are you suggesting that anti-Japanese racism did not exist before Pearl Harbor?

    \

    No, it was quite virulent, actually. I had to do some research on the period 1920-1940 using popular magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and some of the anti-Asian stuff was just astounding.

    I don’t think that anti-Asian bias based on Pearl Harbor lasted much past the 50s, though.

    What I was objecting to tho was saying that the “anti-Arab” bias in the U.S. grew out of 9/11.

    Actually, I don’t know what the hell I’m saying. I just don’t think it’s a good analogy.

  85. 85.

    MattR

    March 23, 2010 at 5:48 pm

    @ellaesther: I don’t think I have ever read a word that Ethan Bronner has written but the Times decision seems like the correct one. I am not saying that Bronner’s writing would be affected, but as is typical for conflict of interest cases, it is the appearance that matters more than the actual results.

    Would you think it is acceptable for the Times to leave a reporter covering the Catholic Church abuse if his son went to work as a Vatican official? Or how about a financial reporter whose son becomes CEO of one of the “too big to fail” institutions?

  86. 86.

    ChrisZ

    March 23, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    @Svensker:

    Oh, I think I see what you were saying there then. I read that as you trying to make a distinction between the two cases (the analogy is bad because the things are too different), rather than an argument that the analogy is is bad because the similarities (big attack on the US) are largely irrelevant.

  87. 87.

    Cain

    March 23, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Anyone who thinks that Amanpour is outclassed in anything having to do with journalism by an idiot who got his break in journalism by having preceded Bill Clinton as Monica Lewinski’s boyfriend is . . . not very smart.

    he should be fired just for saying “an superstar..” asshole.

    cain

  88. 88.

    Xantar

    March 23, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    I generally like Tom Shales

    Tom Shales has an inexplicable hatred of The Daily Show and revels in it. He even goes out of his way to antagonize his readers who disagree with him about The Daily Show and Jon Stewart.

    I’m just saying…

  89. 89.

    Cacti

    March 23, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    @cleek:

    how many years did it take for anti-Japanese racism to finally fade away after Pearl Harbor? 30, 40 years ?

    Among the WWII generation, it hasn’t.

    My 90 year old grams still refers to them as The Japs.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    March 23, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    @Morbo:

    “I don’t want my tax dollars paying for brothas’ with 8 bullet wounds trips to the emergency room.”

    They do realize that their tax dollars are currently paying for that trip to the emergency room, right? And that they’re paying at least twice as much as they should?

    I made the mistake of reading comments at Yahoo! News and people are actually complaining about consumer protections being the heavy hand of government preventing them from being cheated out of their money by unscrupulous companies. Because, of course, they’re all way too smart to be tricked that way (though their spelling makes me doubtful of their claims to literacy) and if they were cheated out of their money, they would just chalk it up to experience and move on instead of whining to the government about it.

    One wonders if they also extend that to, say, a guy breaking into their house and don’t bother to call the police because, after all, that would just be whining to the government to solve their problems for them.

  91. 91.

    Ash Can

    March 23, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    @MattR: If only Clarence Thomas could be recalled from the Supreme Court because his wife’s a tea-partier…

  92. 92.

    cp

    March 23, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    Can I also just point out that although I know we all make grammatical or typographical errors from time to time, one should be especially careful to avoid doing so in the process of calling into question someone else’s competence:

    “This Week” deals mainly in domestic politics and inside-the-Beltway palaver, an area where Amanpour is widely considered to deficient.

  93. 93.

    MattR

    March 23, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    @Ash Can: From your lips to the FSM’s ears(?)

  94. 94.

    Froley

    March 23, 2010 at 6:13 pm

    Shales has been given the task by his bosses and fellow villagers to smear Amanpour because they’re afraid she won’t continue the typical bullshit dog and pony show that they know and love. That’s where the whole “many others deserve it more than she does” stuff comes from. Is he really saying that a woman that can understand global politics and ask intelligent questions of world leaders can’t understand the importance of how much a politician’s haircut cost? Actually she probably can’t, which is the problem.

    (I am looking forward to her explaining to Cokie Roberts that Hawaii is not that exotic.)

  95. 95.

    someguy

    March 23, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    Greenwald has a point. Jews probably shouldn’t be trusted on Israel issues if they are pro-Israel, just as reporters who are Catholic or Irish shouldn’t be trusted on reporting on the British/Irish issue if they show pro-Irish views. Or vice versa.

    So the solution?

    Send the Irish to cover Palestine, and the Jews to cover the Irish Problem. Move over, Leopold Bloom… there’s a new plyotkenitzeh in town. Problem solved.

  96. 96.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    March 23, 2010 at 6:31 pm

    Actually if I may be so bold as to say that Amanpour is a BBC trained journalist, which, distilled to its essence means she is a journalist, in the truest sense of the word, and she is a major threat to the hacks who hold the press credentials in this country. They are not going to be able to hold a candle to her, and they know it. (Yes, yes I have already admitted my girly crush on her and Katty Kay).

  97. 97.

    Svensker

    March 23, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    @ChrisZ:

    Oh, I think I see what you were saying there then. I read that as you trying to make a distinction between the two cases (the analogy is bad because the things are too different), rather than an argument that the analogy is is bad because the similarities (big attack on the US) are largely irrelevant.

    Yes. Thank you.

  98. 98.

    John Cole

    March 23, 2010 at 6:47 pm

    It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab anti-Persian racism is still so acceptable.

    They’re brown.

  99. 99.

    burnspbesq

    March 23, 2010 at 7:03 pm

    @Xenos:

    I hate hate hate Maltese.

    But then, I hate any dog smaller than a Lab.

  100. 100.

    asiangrrlMN

    March 23, 2010 at 7:53 pm

    @SGEW: Never works for me! And, you beat me to it. I was having this very debate over at TNC’s place. It can get beyond frustrating at times.

  101. 101.

    tc125231

    March 23, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    @ChrisZ: I blame the movie “Exodus” with the stirring music and Paul Newman at his coolest.

  102. 102.

    Caravelle

    March 24, 2010 at 2:28 am

    “It’s a mystery to me why anti-Arab anti-Persian racism is still so acceptable.”

    “Anti-Arab” is quite appropriate here I believe, as those people who are racist against Arabs don’t know that Iranians are Persians, or don’t care.

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