Tag Archives: media

Vanity Fair’s Palin Antagonist: ‘I Have a Lot in Common with this Woman’

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The author of a  10,600-word Vanity Fair hit piec e on Sarah Palin is defending his work, claiming he set out to defend the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, but that the resulting article “was forced on me by the facts.” Michael Gross appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Sept. 2 to discuss his article in the October issue of Vanity Fair. The piece depicts Palin as a volatile, vengeful, mean-spirited figure, although Gross  only managed to find one person  willing to speak critically of Palin on the record. “The worst stuff isn’t even in there,” Gross said on “Morning Joe” when asked about the extreme picture he paints of Palin. “You know, I couldn’t believe these stories either when I first heard them and I started the story with the prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I’m a small town person, I’m a Christian. I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them and I figured she’d gotten a bum ride but everybody close to her tells the same story.” Yet for someone so supposedly enamored with Palin, Gross sure turned quickly. He said Palin is “a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about,” citing a speech in Wichita in which Palin contradicted other statements she’d made about finding out her son, Trig, would have special needs. “She lies about everything,” Gross continued, without offering other examples. “She lies about her personal life. She lies about, she lies about …” At one point, Gross said that “if we start returning to the standard that … a politician has to tell the truth, then she is out of here because she can’t stand up to that.” When host Willie Geist pressed Gross on criticism that his piece is a hatchet job, the author maintained that “it’s exactly the opposite. As I said before, I started this with every good intention toward her. I was just shocked and appalled at every step at what I found and I wrote this story, you know, sort of against my will. It wasn’t what I wanted to write, it wasn’t what I wanted to find. It was forced on me by the facts.”  Like this article? Sign up for “Culture Links,” CMI’s weekly e-mail newsletter, by  clicking   here.

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WaPo Publicizes Feminists Outraged at Insulting Senator as ‘Attractive’ and ‘Probably a Good Mother’

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Never tell a feminist politician she’s “attractive” and “a good mother.” To some, that’s a “toxic” insult. Thursday’s Washington Post offered a story on how “Women’s groups target sexism in campaigns: Advocates monitoring what they call ‘toxic’ media environment.” Reporter Krissah Thompson never identified the groups as “liberal,” or even “feminist,” or noted that one of them, the Women’s Media Center, (foolishly) opposed an innocuous Tim Tebow pro-life Super Bowl ad as offensive without having seen it. Thompson began: The list includes the radio talk show host who called a female senator a “prostitute” for cutting a deal to benefit her state, the male challenger who referred to his female rival [as] “attractive” and “probably a good mother,” and the TV host who noted that the candidate’s wife looked like an angry woman. Those comments and others have been collected by a group of advocates for women running for office who are monitoring what they consider a “highly toxic” media environment that makes it difficult for female candidates. Thompson’s Post article never explains that the “attractive”-wielding offender was being “toxic” to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrat appointed to  replace Hillary Clinton from New York. Jill Marcellus at the Women’s Media Center recently wrote up a ticket for Republican candidate Bruce Blakeman: “I think Kirsten Gillibrand is an attractive woman, I think she’s bright, and I think she’s probably a good mom herself,” Blakeman announced Tuesday at a debate with rivals Joe DioGuardi and David Malpass. If you’re experiencing some 1950s flashbacks right now, it’s not just because of the black and white photo of the candidates, arranged in height order, found at that link.  It’s 2010, and we are still judging women by ‘50s standards.  True, Blakeman’s concession that the successful leader is “bright” could bear on her qualifications as a Senator, but he sandwiches it between evaluations of her looks and of her skills as a mother. Blakeman, of course, believes this is a compliment: “I hope Senator Gillibrand will say that I’m bright, that I’m attractive and that I’m a good dad. I’d be very happy with that and I would not be offended.” He wouldn’t be offended because it would never occur to Senator Gillibrand or anyone else to say that about him at a debate.  With his comments, he admits that he sees her first as woman, and second, if at all, as a politician.  Gender never obscures Blakeman’s role in office. A comment is not a compliment if it suggests a politician shouldn’t be in the Senate because she belongs in the home. That’s funny. You might think it would be an insult to feminists if you said Gillibrand was ugly, stupid, and said she was a bad mother for having a career. But it’s an insult if you say anything personal about her at all. (For her part Gillibrand said she was much more concerned about the GOP’s Bush-trickle-down answers, and when a reporter pressed if she had cringed, she laughed and said “I smiled.” She’s obviously not feminist enough.) The irony of all this is that the GOP candidates were asked in the debate to say something nice about Gillibrand, and they’re hardly going to say they think her policy ideas are fantastic. Even “say something nice” questions are a minefield. Perhaps Blakeman should have said “no thanks. I don’t have anything nice to say about her.” Thompson’s report suggested conservative talk-show hosts were going to get pressed: “The effort to track sexist comments and put pressure on advertisers that help bankroll the media figures responsible for some of the remarks comes as women campaign in several high-profile races this year, including for governorships in South Carolina and California as well as Senate seats.” Nowhere in the story do the feminist groups cite the unsubstantiated charges of adultery against South Carolina Republican Nikki Haley, but they do express outrage that people questioned that Sarah Palin could be a good mother and be vice president. But then, those offenders included people in the liberal media who are supposedly feminist. For the record, in Thompson’s lede, she also neglected to say the talk show host tossing the “prostitute” moniker was Glenn Beck talking about Sen. Mary Landrieu being offered millions in Medicaid funds for her state in exchange for her support of ObamaCare. The talker who said a candidate’s wife looked angry was Bill O’Reilly talking about Michelle Obama.

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WaPo Publicizes Feminists Outraged at Insulting Senator as ‘Attractive’ and ‘Probably a Good Mother’

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Left Frantically Spins Discovery Shooter’s Radical Environmentalism – Will MSM Follow Suit?

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Police just raided the Discovery Channel headquarters, where a man had taken hostages, and was apparently demanding that the channel air radical environmental propaganda. The man, James Jay Lee, pictured right, was reportedly shot and killed . Though most of the details remain unclear, one fact is quickly coming into sharp focus: the left will be working overtime in the next few days to spin this event any way they can. It began with this astoundingly dishonest Think Progress headline: ” Purported Eco-Terrorist Angered Over ‘Immigration Pollution And Anchor Baby Filth’ ” That’s right, of Lee’s thousand-word manifesto in which he stated his demands of Discovery, Think Progress chose to highlight not the radical, militant environmentalism he espoused, but rather an obscure claim (in terms of overall message and word count) that immigrants to developed nations make the pollution situation worse. Notably, Think Progress thought it was worth comparing Lee’s position on this single issue to other groups that have made similar claims, but did not see fit to liken him groups of environmental activists who also think overpopulation is the problem (Tom Friedman, please call your office). Lee also said war was bad for the environment. Will Think Progress condemn anti-war groups that make similar claims? Conservative bloggers predicted this line of attack since before it even emerged. Patterico pontificated : “They’ll find a way to label him a right-winger – or at least a Tea Partier. Somehow.” Indeed. Ace chimed in with his prediction: “You know how the media will report this, right? That’s right: Anti-immigration extremist.” Give the man a cigar. But while it’s hardly a surprise that the far-left is spinning the story as hard as they can, the question remains: will liberal journalists who often rip stories from Think Progress repeat this bogus line? Will even the mainstream media pick up on this blatantly dishonest meme, and play up the immigration aspect while ignoring the larger message of environmental extremism? For the media, the event is a bit of a role-reversal. Journalists who purported that militias or other perpetrators or advocates of violence against the government were products of a conservative/libertarian attitude embodied by the Tea Party movement are now put in the awkward position of having to apply that same logic to Lee and his radical environmentalism. By the same line of argument, pundits who relentlessly push the notion that human beings are responsible for the impending apocalypse due to their refusal to moderate their population or change their lifestyles are responsible, at least in part, for today’s violence. The media may also choose to simply ignore the environmental aspect and focus on his immigration views, employing the same logic it has used to condemn the Tea Party movement. We will see. You can help NB monitor media coverage of the situation. If you think you see bias at work, leave a note and link in the comments.

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Hardball: Beck’s ‘Bandwagon of Bigotry and Fear’ Kind of Like KKK

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Tuesday, NewsBusters identified the media’s emerging strategy of discrediting Glenn Beck by pitting his religious beliefs against other Christians. Mere hours later, as if on cue, MSNBC was all over it. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews invited on liberal Salon editor Joan Walsh and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, two people who are something less than experts on the religious right, to help him psychoanalyze conservatives. Their conclusion was all too predictable: Beck’s rhetoric is harmful to Catholics and smacks of anti-Papal Klan rallies. It has now been established by the media that Mormons like Beck are anti-evangelical, anti-Catholic, and possibly just plain anti-Christian. Prepare yourself for liberals who bash conservative Christians at every turn to suddenly care about Christians getting bashed (video below with partial transcript): BOB SHRUM, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, that used to be the rule. But Beck himself clearly is riding a bandwagon of bigotry and fear to gather millions of followers and millions of dollars. He`s made anti-Muslim remarks. He`s made remarks about the president that are certainly tinged with racial overtones. So why wouldn`t he associate with an anti-Catholic? CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: OK, let me get to the roots of this because a lot of this stuff going on on the right has its roots, Joan — and you know, Bob, well — back in the old roots, way back with the “no nothings,” the KKK, the nativists. There`s a smell to this commentary by Hagee, which is anybody that has their religious vaguely from Europe or somewhere else or from Rome, that somehow, it`s bad, it`s un-American. It`s the old nativist cry against the newcomer. But we thought this was sort of dying off somewhere during World War II, when, you know, several million Catholics were fighting the bad guys. We thought this was over with, you and I and Bob. Apparently, it`s still going on with Hagee and his new buddy, Glenn Beck. JOAN WALSH, SALON: Well, you know, I`ve seen this in the mosque debate, as well. We know that, you know, our ancestors, and not very far back, Chris, our very right to participate in public life was questioned because we were supposedly, you know, the subjects of a foreign power, the pope. And so, you know, there`s been a lot of this in right-wing politics for a long time. There have been a lot of battles, and many Catholics have felt, frankly, unwelcome in the Christian right. The other thing, though, that Beck is trying to do here is to unite the Tea Party with the Christian right — MATTHEWS: Right. WALSH: — which has felt a little bit excluded by the Tea Party. If you look at polls, Tea Partiers are less into the Christian right than they are into, say, big business. And it`s been — MATTHEWS: Yes. WALSH: There`s been a little bit of waning of their power, so that`s the other thing that went on on Saturday. It was a dark day when Catholics were discouraged from civil activity because of religious beliefs, and liberals like Walsh will be sure to explain that while attacking civil activists over their religious beliefs. Would that pro-life Catholics were treated with such kid gloves at MSNBC. Or does religious sensitivity only apply to the liberal variety?

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Arab TV Director: ‘Muslim Anger’ Over Ground Zero Mosque Protests is ‘Fabricated’

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The director of the popular Arab-language TV station Al Arabiya says that the Muslim world is not angry over increasing American opposition to a proposed mosque at Ground Zero, and that any claims to the contrary are attempts to “fabricate a conflict.” “The lack of a unified stance throughout the Islamic world should be seen as response to the current attempt by some to ‘fabricate’ a conflict, claiming that Muslims are angry with the refusal to build a mosque in such a controversial setting,” wrote director Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashid in an Aug. 29 column in a London daily. The column was translated and posted on the website for the Middle East Media Research Institute. Some news outlets have claimed that opposition to the Ground Zero mosque may “fuel Islamic extremism” in the Muslim world. “Opposition to the center by prominent politicians and other public figures in the United States has been covered extensively by the news media in Muslim countries,” reported a New York Times article on Aug. 20. “At a time of concern about radicalization of young Muslims in the West, it risks adding new fuel to Al Qaeda ‘s claim that Islam is under attack by the West and must be defended with violence, some specialists on Islamic militancy say.” And the NPR reported on Aug. 24 that “Experts worry the controversy surrounding an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing right into the hands of radical extremists.” But the director of Al-Arabiya TV – a competitor of Al Jazeera – said that the idea that the mosque controversy is inflaming anger across Muslim countries is nonsense. Director Al-Rashid argued that opposition to the Ground Zero mosque has not caused “a public reaction similar to what has been witnessed in dozens of previous cases that have provoked Muslims” – such as the 2006 publication of a cartoon mocking the Islamic prophet in a Danish newspaper, which set off violent protests across the Muslim world. The TV director noted that there have not been demonstrations related to the mosque in Arab countries, that imams have not addressed the controversy during their sermons and that the issue has not been taken up by Islamic religious and intellectual institutions. He also said that many Muslims don’t want the mosque to be built, and understand why the project may be insensitive. “[F]or many Muslims, building a mosque near the same land upon which three thousand people were killed by Muslims is not a necessity. Most comments from readers rejected the idea of building the mosque for fear of it turning into a symbol of hatred against Muslims,” wrote Al-Rashid. And while the TV director said that the organizers of the mosque have “good intentions,” he also added that they have acted “without taking into account the serious nature of [constructing] a mosque at such a particularly sensitive time and place.” This is not the first time Al-Rashid has spoken out over the Ground Zero mosque controversy. On Aug. 16 he wrote in another column that “Muslims never asked for” the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, and “do not care about its construction.” “I can’t imagine that Muslims [actually] want a mosque at this particular location, because it will become an arena for the promoters of hatred, and a monument to those who committed the crime,” he wrote. “Moreover, there are no practicing Muslims in the area who need a place to worship, because it is a commercial district. Is there anyone who is [really] eager [to build] this mosque?”

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Vanity Fair Attacks Palin as Volatile, Angry, Fake

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Another day, another media hit piece aimed at Sarah Palin. Surprise, surprise. A  10,600-word article  in the October issue of Vanity Fair reads like the rambling diaries of a spurned middle school student. Writer Michael Joseph Gross ran through a list of ill-sourced, hearsay attacks on Palin designed to depict her as a raging psychopath – a far cry from the down-to-earth “hockey mom” she portrays in public. But in more than 10,600 words, Gross managed to cite just one person to criticize Palin on the record. Colleen Cottle, who served on the Wasilla City Council when Palin was mayor, complained that she “had no attention span” and “does not understand math or accounting.” Heavy-hitting stuff, that. None of the others Gross apparently interviewed were named, he said, “because they are loyal and want to protect her (a small and shrinking number), or because they expect her prominence to grow and intend to keep their options open, or because they fear she will exact revenge, as she has been known to do.” But given the tone of Gross’s attacks, it’s no wonder those who are close to Palin – including her parents, whom Gross apparently ambushed during a Fourth of July parade in Wasilla – refuse to speak to reporters. Gross described the “surreal world Palin now inhabits – a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family – and the sadness she has left in her wake.” “Anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath,” Gross said. Among his ground-breaking revelations about Palin: She has a well-controlled media presence. (Apparently unlike any other prominent political figure.) Her team didn’t tip bellhops very well in a Kansas hotel, and “another midwestern hotel.” (The “other midwestern hotel” must have asked not to be named, for fear of reprisal from the Palin camp.) Some bloggers have been mean to Palin detractors. Gross later admitted that anti-Palin bloggers are also prone to “juvenile outbursts.” Palin uses references to the North Star a lot. Palin uses three BlackBerry smart phones. Early in the campaign she didn’t know who Margaret Thatcher was – a charge Gross credits to no specific or even unidentified source. She thanks people for praying for her and uses “code phrases expressing solidarity with fundamentalist Christians.” She apparently bought some form-shaping Spanx underwear. There are “No Trespassing” signs on her Wasilla property. Gross’s attacks on Palin center on the characterization that she is volatile and vengeful. “[W]hen she feels threatened, she does not hesitate to wield some version of a signature threat, ‘I have the power to ruin you,'” Gross alleged, citing “others who have worked with Palin.” At one point Gross made it seem as though Palin monitored the telephone conversations of acquaintances in Wasilla. “When I ask about Palin, though, a palpable unease creeps in,” he wrote. “Some people clam up. Others whisper invitations to call later – but on this number, not that one, and not before this hour or after that one.” The real concern, he said after acknowledging a vicious press as one reason for discomfort, is “because of a suspicion that bad things will happen to them” if Palin finds out they’ve talked to reporters. The online version of the report also featured a drawing depicting Palin dressed in some sort of Viking gear, riding a white horse past a group of (pro-Palin, it would seem) protestors. The photo caption notes Palin’s “erratic behavior and a pattern of lying.” The article fits right in with previous coverage of Palin. A 2008  study by the Culture and Media Institute  found two basic media characterizations of Palin: a dunce whose intellectual shortcomings damaged her credibility and that of the GOP, or a demon whose short-fuse and attack-dog style were unbecoming of a woman who portrayed herself a wholesome, all-American gal.

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Typically, Kathleen Parker Finds It Ridiculous That Beck or Palin Can Complain About Media Bias

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Washington Post columnist and incoming CNN prime-time talk-show host Kathleen Parker is still auditioning for liberal-media accolades. In Wednesday’s Post she offered another shovel of her  frenzied distaste for prayer and G-O-D talk in public as she dismissed the Glenn Beck rally, especially the notion that Beck or Sarah Palin could blame the news media for hostility and bias. The media made these people rich , Parker insisted: Oh, that’s right, The Media. Never mind that Beck is one of the richest members of the media. Or that Palin has banked millions primarily because The Media can’t get enough of her. But what’s an exorcism without a demon? And who better to cast into the nether regions than the guys lugging camera lights? That’s an interesting line for someone whose assaults on Palin and other conservatives made her a millionaire CNN host. But conservatives have never focused their media-bias complaints on “guys lugging camera lights,” but the people who adore Obama and other liberals in front of the cameras. Parker also made her usual female-version-of-Scarborough complaints about how poor Barack Obama is the subject of juiced-up right-wing paranoia and conspiracy theories about his aggressive aggrandizement of government action: And the darkness? Creeping communism brought to us by President you-know-who. Conspiracy theories and paranoia are not unfamiliar to those who have wrestled the demon alcohol. Like other successful revivalists — and giving the devil his due — Beck is right about many things. Tens of thousands joined him in Washington and watch him each night on television for a reason. But he also is messianic and betrays the grandiosity of the addict. Let’s hope Glenn gets well soon. Don Surber ably put Parker in her place, that place where her talk-show partner Eliot Spitzer had demons of his own: Ridiculing his alcoholism after agreeing to appear nightly on an hourlong show electronically beside a man whose sexual addiction and proclivities cost him his job as governor of New York is humorously ironic. Instead of picking at Beck’s speck, she might try dislodging that log in her broadcasting partner’s eye.

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Bozell Column: Brian Williams, From Musketeer to Mouseketeer

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina recalls a horror show on two levels. There’s the actual disaster which killed hundreds of people – and then there’s the media smear job on the Bush administration and first responders. No one should forget pompous grandstanders like “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams signing off three months after the floods from the Lower Ninth Ward:  “This is a neighborhood that’s been left to die.” How those network anchors loved hurricane hyperbole! Williams, for one, lectured the nation that the hurricane should “necessitate a national discussion on race, on oil, politics, class, infrastructure, the environment, and more.” He underlined that a top local radio station decided not to air President Bush’s remarks from the city since “nothing he could say could ever help them deal with the dire situation unfolding live in the streets of New Orleans, where people were still dying during his visit.” It never mattered to these nattering nabobs that, as Popular Mechanics magazine documented, Katrina spurred by far the largest and fastest rescue effort in American history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall, rescuing an estimated 50,000 residents. Not content to attack Bush on just his own program, Williams took to comedy shows to unload more spin. He lectured to Jon Stewart on how cities less black than New Orleans would have seen a lot more helicopter rescues. Williams proudly took that attack directly to Bush three months after the storm. “After the tragedy, I heard someone ask rhetorically, ‘What if this had been Nantucket, Massachusetts, or Inner Harbor Baltimore or Chicago or Houston?’ Are you convinced the response would have been the same? Was there any social or class or race aspect to the response?” On the first anniversary of Katrina, Williams repeated the mudslinging, citing radical-left black professor Michael Eric Dyson in Bush’s face: “A lot of Americans are always going to believe that that weekend, that week, you were watching something on television other than what they were seeing, and Professor Dyson from the University of Pennsylvania said on our broadcast last night it was because of your patrician upbringing, that it’s a class issue.” Bush shot back: “Dyson doesn’t know. I don’t know Dyson, and Dyson doesn’t know me.” But Williams didn’t care. His cartoon was perfect. Williams later appeared on PBS and boasted “You can’t give distance. I don’t mean that in a Jets vs. Sharks way. I’m not an adversary.” That’s laughable. He insisted Bush “appreciates the swordfight of a crackling good conversation.” Now watch Williams “swordfight” with Barack Obama. He’s gone from musketeer to Mouseketeer. On the fifth anniversary of the hurricane, Williams deferred to the statesman before him by asking about the lack of a national conversation: “Katrina was about so many things. It was about class and race and government and the environment. Whatever happened to that national conversation we were supposed to have about it?” Is that all the toughness Williams could muster? That’s how he “crackles” now? See his crackling swordfight over the BP oil spill and Obama’s lack of effort: “It’s getting baked in a little bit in the media that BP was President Obama’s Katrina. And it’s also getting baked in that the administration was slow off the mark. Is that unfair?” What about our disastrous economy? Surely Williams would challenge Obama here. “Do you have anything new on the economy?” Instead of tough questions, Williams felt Obama’s pain that too many Americans misunderstand his religious faith: “Mr. President, you’re an American-born Christian, and yet increasing and now significant numbers of Americans in polls, upwards of a fifth of respondents, are claiming you are neither. A fifth of the people, just about, believe you’re a Muslim….This has to be troubling to you. This is, of course, all new territory for an American president.” That’s not even a question! But it’s all in a day’s shoeshine for Brian Williams. He loved slinging “racist, classist” mud on Bush, but he was so distraught by Obama’s-a-Muslim rumors that he replayed the poor-Barry exchange a second time the next night. Why is this arrogant partisan the leading evening-news anchor in America? He drew 7.2 million viewers last week, as the ratings continue to decline. That’s not unexpected when an anchorman can’t be bothered to ask tougher questions to this president than his makeup artist would.

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Bozell Column: Brian Williams, From Musketeer to Mouseketeer

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Help Us Take NewsBusters to the Next Level!

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Last year, we made some major changes on the back end of NewsBusters to help us keep up with demand as NewsBusters has grown in popularity. Those technical changes paid off and now we’re on the verge of completing phase two of these changes. We occasionally make fund-raising requests from our readers, but know that this is one instance in which your help is absolutely essential. We literally cannot do it without you. We’ve set a goal of $30,000, which will cover the upgrade. We need your help to reach this goal. Something you may not be aware of is that because the Media Research Center, NB’s parent company is 501c3 non-profit, we cannot take certain advertisements that would allow us to easily pay such expenses. That is where you, our loyal NB readers can help with a tax-deductible donation . You can also donate to NewsBusters via PayPal – be sure to enter “NewsBusters” in the Description field at the top of the page! Thank you for your continued support. It’s already paid off in spades as NB has become the go-to destination for conservatives who want to combat liberal media bias. We’re cited daily by such top radio talk show hosts as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, and many more. This increased attention has meant more costs for our server expenses, though. Please take the time today to support NB’s continued expansion to meet the new political climate. You’ve come through for us before and we’re confident that you can do so again. With 2010 the most critical year in America in our lifetime, we need to make sure that NewsBusters is ready to force the media to tell the truth about President Obama and other politicians. Click here for more details on the new NewsBusters.org.

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Time’s Klein: Beck a ‘Telecharlatan’ Who Will Have Hard Time Entering ‘Kingdom of Heaven’

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Secular leftists in the media don’t often have use for religion, particularly Christianity, except, it seems, when biblical passages can be isolated out of context to bash religious conservatives over the head as wicked for opposing big government or for standing up for traditional moral values. Enter Joe Klein, Christian theologian extraordinaire, who suggested in Time.com Swampland blog post yesterday that Jesus would make Fox News host Glenn Beck sweat it out a bit at the pearly gates: If Jesus were around today, he might say that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a telecharlatan to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In a follow-up blog post from today , Klein thanked a commenter for passing along a passage from the gospel according to St. Matthew wherein Jesus taught that “when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.” “The noisy proclamation of religiosity is usually a sign of the exact opposite,” Klein preached regarding the August 28 Beck rally. Of course, the teaching Klein cited does not forbid any and all public prayer, it just points out that praying for show as a demonstration of one’s self-righteousness carries no reward with God. Either Klein doesn’t understand that principle or he does and is arguing that the Beck rally was simply a cynical, hypocritical self-righteous display. I think in context, Klein would hold to the latter. Yet in concluding his blog post, Klein seemed to attack Beck and his rally attendees for not being public enough about their religious devotion. The Time writer cited Christ’s  parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46) wherein Jesus pronounced blessing on those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the imprisoned because “when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.”  “It is amazing how infrequently this sentiment is honored by the noisy righteous,” scolded Klein, citing absolutely no evidence for his assertion that the thousands in attendance at the Beck rally are not involved in their quiet lives back home in acts of charity and mercy. Perhaps Klein is alluding to the philosophical opposition Beck and other conservative have to heavy government involvement in social welfare, but if that’s the case Klein would arguably be misappropriating Jesus’s call for personal acts of charity and mercy into a call for government action towards those ends, the opposition against could be castigated as sinful and un-Christlike. At any rate, if Klein wants to play this game, doesn’t he seem a bit judgmental for a guy throwing around Jesus’s words to condemn his neighbor?

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Time’s Klein: Beck a ‘Telecharlatan’ Who Will Have Hard Time Entering ‘Kingdom of Heaven’

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