If They Only Knew

Mike Plaisted on Sheriff David Clarke's bid on retaining his tin star:

No mention of his nut-right tea party ravings. No admission of his regular appearances on wing-nut radio and his tacit (or express) endorsement of all their often racist arguments and campaigns. No mention of the fact that Clarke's expensive billboard advertising is underwritten by the usual Republican and right-wing moneybags who have poisoned the political dialog in Milwaukee and nationally for decades.

If African-American Democratic voters knew Clarke's record, affiliations and the substance of his political grandstanding better, they would never return him to office. But Clarke is going to make sure they know he's African-American, as he has every right to do. But, alongside every one of those billboards should be a disclaimer: *NOTE: David Clarke is NOT a Democrat. More about that in a future post.

See also: "Running as a Democrat"

McKenna: Queen of the TEA Nuts

Mike Plaisted, in language a little more blunt than what you may be used to, on Vicki McKenna:

The primary purveyor of violent revolution on local mainstream radio is the putrid Vicki McKenna on WISN. McKenna – who phones in her shtick from Madison, where she has been a thorn in the side of Truth and Common Sense for years – fancies herself a leader of the Tea Baggers. She even manages to get herself on the podium at their dog-and-pony shows, opening for such brilliant orators as Not-Joe the Not-Plumber and Michelle Malkin.

As the loopy right lost its collective mind over the passage of moderate health insurance regulation last week, McKenna was right out there with them, baying at the moon and pretending the People would soon extract Vengeance for this Tyrannical attack on Liberty. Or some such nonsense. McKenna offers up her two hours of free radio time every weekday morning to provide remarkably free advertising for all things Tea and GOP (same thing). Any staged astro-turf “rally” is promoted for weeks on her show. Republican politicians have a free pass to visit McKenna by phone or in studio any time to blather about their latest campaigns or ludicrous legislation. It has gotten to the point that she and Scott Walker should just, well, get a room.

Talk Radio Knows No Limits In Tastelessness

From Mike Plaisted, speaking about how two local right wing media members exploit the sad and tragic murder of Elizabeth Witte:

The poor woman has not even been put to rest yet, but that didn't stop them from tramping over her memory and, no doubt, increasing the suffering and grief of her family by foolishly claiming that she could have saved herself if only she was allowed to pack heat. Imagine driving around making arrangements and gathering family for the services on Saturday and having to put up with this crap on your radio. African-Americans in town have had to tolerate this nonsense for years, but this could (and should) be considered out of bounds on the North Shore. Perhaps Sykes might catch a little blow-back on his next trip to Sendik’s. We could only hope.

The NRA talking-points read by both Sykes and Weber were identical: Elizabeth Witte might be alive today if she had a gun in her purse to protect herself. The whole premise is absurd. Murderous stalkers like her sick ex-husband don’t announce themselves, wave their knives up in the air and give her time to get the gun out, much less aim and shoot. The gruesome details in the complaint show that she never had a chance, armed or unarmed. To take these horrible facts and try to make political hay out of these circumstances is an outrage. In the pursuit of their right-wing agenda, Sykes and Weber went and pissed on her grave before she even got a chance to get buried in it.

Jay Weber is an annoying, interchangeable hack, but Charlie Sykes yearns for respectability. Although, as the golden boy of the Journal Company, he can get away with anything (such as calling Al Sharpton a pimp and Hillary Clinton a witch), he also savors his TV face-time, most recently offering campaign "analysis" on straight news programs (if you can still call the continuing deterioration of Channel 4 "straight news"). You wonder if it is really worth it for him to drive political points over the dead bodies of obviously beloved tragic victims like Elizabeth Witte.

Read the whole thing here.

National James T. Harris Appreciation Day

I apparently missed this over the weekend, but given the success of the National Patrick McIlheran Appreciation Day, it is only logical that this would be followed up with a National James T. Harris Appreciation Day.

The tributes start rolling in with this piece by Mike Plaisted:

Substance-wise, Harris seldom strays from the mundane wing-nut orthodox talking-points left behind by others. When he adds his wacked-out personal touch, he often uses his (he thinks) protected status as a black man to spin racist tripe about Barack Obama. He calls Obama "the Chocolate Jesus", something no one else could get away with. Like other African-American conservatives anointed by his white benefactors, he has the right-wing blame-the-victim thing down-pat, blaming his less fortunate (i.e.: less accomodating, less corporate-sponsored) brothers and sisters in the city for the legacy of slavery, the long history of someone else’s racism, their systemic poverty and uncomfortable underclass behavior.

The Pundit Nation comes out with the point that one of Harris' favorite topics is "white guilt," and adds that feeling guilt is not always a bad thing. Illy-T follows this up with pointing out that a group of "white apologists" that Harris was complaining about, weren't really all that white, with a number of blacks in the group.

Mike Mathias and Illy-T again team up for a one-two punch about one of Harris' "illogical and vapid" posts on whether or not Jesus would have been an American soldier.

How does Harris' handle all this? Well, in the usual, typical mature fashion of any member of the local right wing media. He starts calling people names.

The War Of The Big Bad Words

Whallah! has already covered the article by McIlheran and his pithy lexicon, n'est-ce pas?

Brawler also spelled out how foolish the right can be, especially in an election year.

Now, Mike Plaisted joins in the fray:

It’s been about three years now since the Journal Sentinel elevated copy editor Patrick McIlheran to a newly-created Wing-Nut Columnist chair. Apparently, the powers-that-be at the J-S felt Wisconsin was just not getting enough of the GOP-driven right-wing echo-chamber message through its radio station and decided to give Paddy Mac a show of his own on the op-ed page.

Since then, there being no lefty alternative in the paper, McIlheran has been free and unchallenged to spread the gospel of Rove and consort with the usual suspects to produce the written version of wing-nut radio, waving the J-S imprimatur and circulation numbers (such as they are) like a bludgeon to smite all uppity challengers to right-wing orthodoxy. It gives the right-wing another pillar to bounce off of – Sykes cites to McIlheran, McIlheran to McBride, McBride to McIlheran, etc. – as the nut-right seeks false legitimacy through the sheer repetition of its message in various forums. McIlheran's most recent campaign was fighting for the right of doctors to deny rape victims a reasonable way to avoid the most unwanted of pregnancies. Woman-as-incubator apparently plays well with the base. Brave stuff, this.

...

McIlheran also has issues with the idea of "smart" anything. Smart cars, smart growth, smart budgeting – enough! Give him Dumb any day over this thinking so much brain hurt. "Sustainable" is for suckers; "speaking-out" for the pretend-victim. Concepts like "modern" and "progress"? Only for the deluded or the city planner, apparently. Progressives want to "party like it’s 1899," he says, obviously upset with the end of the Spanish-American war.

You can read the whole post here.