Name That Outragee

Which compassionate American said this???

Again, can you imagine the 24/7 media witch hunt had Edwards been a conservative?

and

Lots of people commit adultery. That doesn’t give the next married person a free pass.

but then tells us all to just move along with...

This is none of our business. [...] Leave these two alone.

It's about being consistent in your message and acting with integrity, Kevin. Real reporters don't sleep with their subjects except in bad fiction.

This is a tragedy for at least two families but we need to remember that two adults, trusted and influential in the community, made choices that led to this result. This is not the result of an accident.

Pride in Prejudice

If there was ever any doubt what was really the issue with the decision to revisit crack cocaine sentences, Michael J. Cheaney at Jessica McBride's Media Matters made it crystal clear. The amazing thing is that Ms. McBride, who famously moderates comments at her site, allowed this one to go through.

Not only are they about to let out a bunch of crackheads, The state of Wisconsin will also be handing out Get of of jail free cards to ALL black people accused of a crime if Jim Doyle has his way.

[my italics]

Ah, I get it now: crackhead = black people.

Is It a Full Moon Thing

I've been doing some commenting at McBride's Media Matters. And while I applaud her opening up comments more and more, she still applies a selective brush. All of my comments are respectful, and yet she will accept some, and not accept others ... generally not accepting a comment so as to give her side the last word.

It's funny how she and other commenters from her side have this inability to read comments in their entirety, instead selectively jumping on a word or phrase here and there and then ranting nonsensically.

It must be genetic, or massive insecurity. I've no explanation.

Jessica McBride: Crack Journalist!

I love what some people consider to be a "journalist" nowadays.

Take Jessica McBride for example. Young Jessica is a teacher of young journalists - a molder of minds if you will. The future of journalism is in her hands, a thought that absolutely frightens me to no end.

I happened to surf on over to Young Miss Jessica's blog, and an entry of hers on the scandal involving Senator Larry Craig (R - Bathroom Stalls) caught my eye. What caught my eye was not the groundbreaking content (there's not much of that to be found in her blog), but rather the fact that Young Miss Jessica directly contradicts herself in the same blog entry. In said entry, YMJ states:

Enough with the "he's innocent until proven guilty" stuff and "if he did it" stuff that I've been hearing on some conservative shows. Regardless of what he says now, Larry Craig PLEADED GUILTY in a court of law and was convicted. That should mean something. He's not innocent until proven guilty. He's guilty.

Then she follows up the whole, "HE'S GUILTY" point with this doozy (I added my own emphasis):

Bill Clinton was accused of raping a woman. Ted Kennedy was accused of leaving a woman to die. They enjoy respect from the Democratic party and the media. Larry Craig was accused of nudging the foot of an undercover cop, and the Democrats want to put him in a stockade in the public square.

Now maybe I dwell in a different reality than YMJ, but in my reality you can't follow up a statement like, "HE'S NOT INNOCENT, HE'S BEEN PROVEN GUILTY!" with, "He was accused of..." without directly contradicting yourself. I can only hope YMJ isn't teaching that trick to her students, because it's bad form to directly contradict yourself when reporting the news.

Thin-Skinned?

Fearless Jessica McBride has reposted her post titled, "The left's racism," because, she says: "I have reposted this without the comments because I will not allow anonymous trash comment postings on my blog. If people don't have the guts to say who they are, they are not welcome to comment on my blog."

Other than one comment from Mssr. Whallah, which was pretty tame and invited people to "Whallah" for some good commenting, the only anonymous posters who were trashy were her conservative friends.

She just can't face the truth.

Because she's there

Tim Rock at Other Side of My Mouth tackles the question: Why is everybody picking on Jessica?

Rock, Mike Mathias Plaisted, and Bill Christofferson all offer slightly different takes.

We think the answer is: Because she's there.

It's quiet out there

We are not ready to abandon ship, but there is a dearth of material these days on our friend Jessica McBride.

And that's a good thing.

She seems less relevant every additional day she's off the airwaves and out of the media spotlight, which must be making her crazy. Maybe she'll have to sue somebody one of these days just to get some attention. (We suspect the lawyer in her house has told her that's a bad idea.)

Her blog has deteriorated into a takeoff of Boots and Sabers, which is notable for its lack of commentary. A recent McBride item:

Good

-- The Assembly Republican budget won't include a gas tax increase, Speaker Mike Huebsch told WisPolitics today. (Wispolitics)

Yes, that's the whole thing.

But eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, they say. So Whallah! will continue to monitor her so that you don't have to.

It's a bad job, but somebody's gotta do it.

Telling it like it is

You have to say this for Illusory Tenant, whoever that may be. He/she doesn't pull any punches. Lead-in to a recent post:

Here's a perfect example of how dumb, irresponsible, lazy, and pandering university journalism "lecturer" Jessica McBride is.

Read it here.

Expanding on McBride Doctrine: If they're for it, we're against it

Jessica continues to explain the McBride Doctrine of foreign policy:

I don't know about you, but my instinct is to support the things al-Qaida does NOT want. That's usually a good idea with a mortal enemy.

We can be thankful that al-Qaida has not come out in favor of building more schools in Iraq. If they had, we'd be forced to be in favor of destroying schools.

But here's a stickier question: What if al-Qaida actually wants US troops to remain in Iraq, with 150,000 bogged down there more or less permanently, at the mercy of insurgents and their bombs?

There is some evidence that's just what al-Qaida wants. They've said as much, that they want the US to stay the course and remain in the quagmire.

Applying the McBride Doctrine, if al-Qaida wants us to stay, we should leave.

Maybe she is on to something.

Jack Bauer for terrorism czar

What do Jessica McBride and Justice Antonin Scalia have in common? Judicial philosophy? Intellectual curiosity? A love of Cuban cigars?

No, it's a wish that television's fictional Jack Bauer were in charge of Homeland Security.

"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said at a conference where Bauer's fictional exploits were the topic. Story.

Then there's McBride, who wrote:

One suspects that if [Bauer had] been at the controls before 9/11, the attacks might have been stopped.

They both acknowledge that Bauer is fictional. But they both wish he weren't.

At least McBride's not likely to end up on the Supreme Court.

So many words, so little to say

What do you do when you have an 800-word column due and have only 8 words worth of ideas?

Pad, pad, pad.

Some columnists have been known to write a column about having nothing to write a column about.

McBride's latest Waukesha Freeman column is in that vein, an obvious pad job. As she regales you with statistics about how many dog licenses are issued in the Town of Lisbon, it reminds you of a Senator reading the telephone book into the Congressional Record during a filibuster.

It would be hard to accept any pay for this "effort" with a clear conscience.

Breakthrough -- Talk back to McBride

A new policy and a new blog address for Jessica McBride.

She doesn't say whether the comments will be "moderated" -- screened, in other words -- or not. Let's hope that if people are prepared to put their names on and stand by the comments that she'll have the courage to post them all.

We predict the thin-skinned Ms. McBride will not enjoy this. She already is giving herself an escape clause in case everyone doesn't behave nicely.

Monday, June 18, 2007
Comments

After giving it a lot of thought, I've decided to allow comments on my blog. I will not allow anonymous comments. If you have something to say, I believe you should put your name to it, and be prepared to stand by it.

I do this hesitantly. If you want to know why, read this article. I haven't experienced anything quite like this. However, some postings have come close, and I do relate to it. So, I simply ask that you stick to debating the issues, albeit vigorously. If it degenerates into the sort of thing I've seen on some blogs, I may reconsider.

Unfortunately, there's something wrong with this blog, and it won't let me activate the comment function. I've tried everything, including new templates, to no avail. So, to allow comments I've had to create a new blog.

The new blog address is http://mcbridesmediamatters.blogspot.com/.
...

Meanwhile, Jessica, you are welcome, as always, to comment here, in your own name, with a pseudonym, or anonymously.

To the rescue -- 10 years later McBride, Sykes get it wrong again

A classic example of how things spread on the Internet when bloggers are in such a rush to post something that they don't read carefully.

Jessica McBride on the "thought police:"

James Harris is under attack for quoting an author who said this:

“There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs. If you don’t believe me visit any inner-city neighborhood, if you dare.”

Her source was Charlie Sykes , who wrote:

James T. Harris infuriated some state bureaucrats the other day.... actually enraged them. How?

By quoting this:

“There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs. If you don’t believe me visit any inner-city neighborhood, if you dare.”

However, if you bother to read what Harris himself wrote, you'll find this:

“There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs. If you don’t believe me visit any inner-city neighborhood, if you dare.”

I spoke these words at a black state employees’ convention. It was part of an anti-affirmative action address that I gave for a breakout session.

Yikes!

My words were not well received.

I had to be escorted to the organizer’s room. Every step of the way, from the podium to the sanctuary, was a step through anger. People were pissed off. I got the feeling that I was no longer welcome.

I wasn’t. I left.

Those words, however, were not my own. I borrowed them from the famed sociologist, George Gilder. Mr. Gilder first uttered the same words on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the mid 1980s, and it got him kicked off the show. To this day, I believe Mr. Gilder has the distinction of being the first and only person kicked off ‘The Oprah.’

Oprah apologized to her audience for inviting a racist onto the show.

Here we are a decade removed from my borrowed comments and nearly two decades from Gilder’s original utterances, and as I write this I am looking at yet another story of a little girl shot in the face because she left the safety of her home, to play in streets, ruled by angry, aimless, homicidal black teenage males.

McBride tries to rally the wingnut blogosphere:

As conservatives, we should all speak up when a fellow conservative is under attack by the politically correct thought police for supposed "offensiveness," especially when it deals with race, which is the favorite tactic of the left (cry racism) in its efforts to silence conservatives. If any of us stays silent or mutes our response for any number of reasons, we hurt the conservative cause. I wonder what would happen if Harris said this same thing on his radio show?

My only problem with the passage above is that teenage girls need fathers just as badly. Everyone needs a father. Fathers matter, despite what some cartoonists think.

I strongly support James. Don't let them get you down, James. You are exactly what this community needs.

The fact is that he's not "under attack" and was relating a 10-year-old story.

But never let the facts get in the way of some good conservative outrage over race.

New Photo

Like, wow ... Jessica has a new picture of herself and it's really rad. All you boys who don't like her can, like, gag yourselves with a spoon, cuz, it's soooo cool.

The picture is titled "thispic." She had to remind herself this was the picture to use.

McBride Again and Again

This truly is dumb. From our insipid scribe, Jessica McBride:

Yeah, I'm about to defend Gov. Doyle's former communications director. Stop the presses.

Journal Sentinel: WHEDA gives PR work to ex-Doyle staffer

Madison -- The state housing authority has paid $64,700 in recent years to a public relations firm run by Gov. Jim Doyle's former communications director.

So what? If he's the former communications director to the governor, presumably he's got the required experience in PR, and they know whether or not he does good work. The real question is whether there was anything awry with the hiring process and whether or not the PR work was really needed and whether or not the taxpayers got their money worth.

Absent any attempt to even explore those questions... who cares?

Though one might be tempted to ascribe the kiss of death to her defense of the unknown communications director, a few things are missing from this piece, something a real journalist, or at the least, a competent blogger, would have provided.

Uh, what is the name of the former communications director? It might be helpful.

How about a link to the offending piece, or at the very least, the date the piece was printed.

Shouldn't McBride be up front and state she previously worked for Journal Communications before writing a shoddy rip piece?


Why is she still teaching journalism classes? Stop the presses.

McBride, Again (again)

Jessica McBride displayed her usual lack of depth recently when commenting on the lack of media coverage for the winner of the National Spelling Bee ... a home schooler. Her post consisted of this:

Michelle Malkin on the media's bias by ignoring this angle.

Malkin and McBride must have taken the same classes in blogging. Malkin's post consisted of this:

Spelling bee champ was home-schooled
By Michelle Malkin · June 01, 2007 03:13 PM
But you wouldn't know it from the MSM coverage.

The reporting skills of these two are astounding. The fact is, home school kids have been doing well in the National Spelling Bee for some time now. Back in June 2000, they took the top three spots in the contest. Good for them. But, Jessica ... it is no longer news.

Making it personal

Did you ever notice how quickly conservatives attack personally when they can't defend themselves substantively?

Jessica McBride -- long may she blog, so we can stay in business -- went on the attack immediately after losing her job on Friday. Her first post on Saturday, back on her old blog:

Thus, it's important that corporate management defend its hosts, particularly when partisan liberal blogs (including a juvenile/abusive anonymous one and one run by the man who was the other finalist for my job at UWM) are driving the outrage in concert with the liberal media.

Presumably, Whallah! is the "juvenile/abusive" one. Need we say that being called juvenile and abusive by Jessica McBride is like being called smelly by a skunk? No, we needn't. (And how can we forget her strong defense of Dennis York's right to anonymity?

We are more concerned by the sliming of Jim Rowen, a polite, thoughtful, policy-oriented wonk blogger who writes primarily about environmental issues but occasionally comments on right-wing talk radio outrages.

Rowen was the first to comment on McBride's tasteless segment that mixed chicken squawks with a question about the killing of 4-year-old Jasmine Owens.

By blogging standards, it was pretty mild:

Tacky Talk Radio: McBride Mocks The Death Of A Child

WTMJ-AM 620 rightwing talker and blogger Jessica McBride stages a fake interview with one of her frequent targets - - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel local columnist Eugene Kane - - and supplies chicken squawking sound effects as Kane's answers, since he didn't accept the interview invitation.

No surprise there, as McBride says the idea behind the kind of interview she wanted to do with Kane is to hammer a liberal on the air, so what, from the 'guest's' point of view, would be the point?

... it seems as if you going to hear another juvenile but relatively harmless political radio rip...except that McBride uses those comedic sound effects for 'Kane's' answer to a question about the recent, horrific Jasmine Owens murder.

Jasmine is the little girl killed by a bullet to the head in a Milwaukee drive-by shooting.

So is the murder of a child, and an earlier murder McBride sets up in a similar way, fair game for entertainment radio programming?

Are listeners entertained?

Would Jasmine's mother enjoy hearing her child's name bandied around on a radio program?

Would Jasmine's mother enjoy hearing the host yuk it up with the producer who collaborated on the scheme hos clever was this bit on the state's largest AM radio station?

That was it. No call for McBride's head. No demand that she be fired. It wasn't until later, after WTMJ management had removed the offending post and audio from their website, that Rowen even suggested an apology was in order.

McBride, lashing out in all directions, says Rowen went after her because she was hired, instead of him, for a UWM journalism lecturer position several years ago. Rowen has moved on to other interests, and seems a lot happier and at peace with what he's doing than McBride does with her life. He's probably thankful he didn't get the job.

John McAdams, a Marquette faculty member who should know better, writes about Rowen like it's an expose. How did he find out Rowen had competed for the UWM job? He asked him. Rowen said yes, that was true -- which is why he has never commented about McBride's performance at UWM.

Pretty big expose, huh?

So pleased with it was McAdams than he began to post comments on lefty blogger sites, saying "you liberal bloggers have allowed yourselves to get caught up in carrying the water for a fellow with some rather personal issues with McBride," and linking to his post.

Excuse us, but who's carrying the water here? He's taken an unfounded attack by McBride -- who left Rowen's name out but no doubt hoped to be asked who she was talking about -- and spread it far and wide. Real Debate Wisconsin chimed in, too. And Badger Blogger is peddling the complete untruth that Rowen wants McBride fired from UWM.

None of them offers any substantive defense for the terrible mistake she made on the air Tuesday night in an effort to score points in her grudge match against Eugene Kane, who calls her out regularly. Just spreading McBride's personal venom. (Michael Mathias points out how ludicrous attack on Rowen is.)

WTMJ management, meanwhile, says McBride was on her way out the door anyway, and the station just moved up her departure date.

Whallah! prefers to think -- although it defies all logic -- that Rowen got her fired.

Rowen has moved on to other topics. Time for us to do likewise.

The last word: Rowen also was critical of Michael McGee's on-air comments about the Sykes family, and praised WNOV for taking him off the air. We're still waiting for the evidence that Rowen had applied to host McGee's show.