50+ things you won't learn on talk radio

OK, McBride's not a radio presence any more (if she ever was), but this effort is too good to go unrecognized by Whallah!

Wisconsin's lefty bloggers have teamed up to produce this gem, a response to Charlie Sykes's book blaming the schools for everything wrong with the younger generation.

It's posted all over the Cheddarsphere.

Here's the Milwaukee Rising version.

McBride undercover; poses as black journalist

Well, not exactly.

She's apparently at a convention of the National Assn. of Black Journalists, with some students, and was inspired to to try to ask Barack Obama a question.

Good grief.

Do you think we are paying her to be there? (It's in Vegas.)

UPDATE: Her question is whether Obama would meet with Al Qaeda. Would Republicans meet with Saddam Hussein? Well ...

Rummy and Saddam, in the happier days of the Reagan administration. (Hat tip: Illusory Tenant.)

The one that got away

So a guy shows up late for a job interview and starts it out by announcing, “you’re a damn fool if you don’t hire me.”

Jessica McBride thinks the Journal Sentinel should have hired him anyway.

Why? Because the guy in question, Jason Whitlock, is a black sports columnist who followed the right-wing line during the ugly Don Imus controversy in April, saying black culture and gangsta rap, not Imus, are the real problem, and accusing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of exploiting the Rutgers basketball team and making the issue too big of a deal.

That, of course, is the diversity of opinion the right wing loves, whenever they can find a black person who agrees with them. (They are few and far between.)

"He would have been a really fresh voice in town," McBride says.

Right.

UPDATE: Illusory Tenant digs a little deeper and finds that McBride, avowed affirmative action foe, is the advisor for a student group whose goal is to increase diversity.

JBVH is warned: The wingnuts are watching

We learned here the other day that Jessica McBride thinks JB Van Hollen has broken his promise to be a partisan right wing hack as attorney general.

It's spread. Van Hollen's bona fides are now being questioned by the other half of the duo formerly known as McSykes. Charlie put JBVH to the test on his show this week, and gave him an incomplete. The wingnuts are watching, JB. Xoff has more.

Judging a cop by his cover

Welcome once again to McBride World, where candidates for police chief are evaluated by how tough they look.

If that's the criterion, the Fire and Police Commission should look at the mug shot of the guy charged in the triple murder in Connecticut.

McSykes is dead; long live McSykes

Some lefty bloggers used to use the term "McSykes" to denote how Charlie Sykes and Jessica McBride's mutual admiration society resulted in them writing the same thing about the same subject, or, more often, simply linking to one another's blogs to steer readers there.

"How insightful," Charlie would say, with a link to McBride's latest drivel. "What an eye for talent," McBride would respond, linking to Sykes.

Since Charlie's protege was banished from the WTMJ Kingdom, the echo chamber appears to have stopped. She still speaks highly of him, but doesn't even make it onto his blogroll of 23 right-wing Wisconsin blogs, including some that are pretty marginal.

But there's a new relationship blossoming with Sykes and the Journal Sentinel's resident wingnut, Patrick McIlheran, who have formed a new and improved mutual admiration society and send readers back and forth. Can a permanent McIlheran chair on the Sunday Sykes TV show be far behind?

So, the old McSykes may be history, but there's a new McSykes tandem to carry on. Praise the Lord.

Patrick and Charlie, we now pronounce you wing and nut. It's a match made in heaven.

UPDATE: McCarthy McIlheran says liberals aren't entitled to describe themselves as Americans, because they're really unpatriotic:

Time and again, left-leaning organizations have, in the years since, sought to wrap themselves in an outer mantle of traditional Americanism, despite their distaste for it.

These foreign policy views are a riot

Jessica McBride doesn't like it when Democrats talk about foreign policy. That's why she is willing to rewrite the Constitution to say, for example, that Senators like Russ Feingold can't complain about the conduct of the Iraq war. And, presumably, why she would blame Democrats for "inflaming the Muslim world" when introducing and article mostly about a Republican. And, I guess, why she is willing to risk Godwin's Law just to diss Barack Obama.

That's from Jay Bullock at folkbum, and he's just getting warmed up.

'Every reporter's worst nightmare'

Jessica McBride wrote this recent one-liner, with a link to a story about the assassination of a black newspaper editor in California:

Arrests made in slaying of Oakland journalist
Every reporter's worst nightmare.

That's the entire post by journalism teacher McBride.

Let me preface this by saying that, as a former journalist, I do not want to minimize or understate the courage of those reporters and photographers who put themselves in danger to report the news, in war zones and in other dangerous situations. Many of them regularly risk their lives.

But it is a giant leap from recognizing that bravery to suggesting that "every reporter's worst nightmare" is that he/she will be gunned down on a street corner in the US by masked assassins, as the Oakland editor was.

If that truly is their worst nightmare, they should not lose any sleep over it.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 636 journalists have been killed worldwide in the last 15 years, including 109 in Iraq. From the group's website:

CPJ applies strict journalistic standards when investigating a death. We consider a case “confirmed” only if we are reasonably certain that a journalist was killed in direct reprisal for his or her work; in crossfire; or while carrying out a dangerous assignment.

Since 1992, four journalists have been killed in the US under such conditions.

One was a Haitian, killed for political leanings, one a Cuban-American exposing a NYC drug ring. Another was a 9-11 victim and the fourth a victim of terrorists who sent anthrax to his newspaper. (Details below.)

What's my point?

That a journalism instructor who is introducing college students to the profession does it a disservice by portraying it as a glamorous, dangerous business where reporters routinely risk their lives. It's far more likely that I will be bitten by a rabid right-wing blogger than it is that one of McBride's students will be shot for some crusading piece of journalism.

They may well get an abusive phone call now and then, an angry email or letter to the editor, but anything more, like even a punch in the nose, would be a rarity. (Read this morning's Journal Sentinel and ask yourself who's likely to be murdered for what they wrote. See what I mean?)

Her students' worst nightmares should be that they end up in a dead-end reporting or editing job where they're just punching the clock and waiting to retire in 30 years.

McBride's worst nightmare should be that someone will fact-check her work.

--

Details on the journalist deaths:

Manuel de Dios Unanue, El Diario/La Prensa, March 11, 1992, New York City

Cuban-American de Dios, the outspoken former editor of El Diario/La Prensa and the founder of weekly magazine Cambio XXI and monthly magazine Crimen (Crime), was shot in the head in a New York City restaurant. Police believe that more than a dozen drug traffickers and businessmen plotted to murder de Dios in retaliation for hard-hitting stories he had written about their drug and money laundering operations. Daily death threats were telephoned into the offices of El Diario/La Prensa after the journalist's murder.


Dona St. Plite, WKAT, Miami, October 24, 1993, Miami

St. Plite, a Haitian-born reporter and commentator for radio station WKAT in Miami, was murdered at a benefit for the family of Fritz Dor, a colleague killed two years earlier. His name had appeared on a hit list of supporters of ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He was the third Haitian-born journalist killed in Miami in three years.

William Biggart, free-lancer, September 11, New York City

Biggart, a free-lance news photographer, was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The journalist's body was found on September 15 in the rubble at Ground Zero, near the bodies of several firefighters. Biggart had rushed to the scene with his camera shortly after hearing about the attacks.

Robert Stevens, The Sun, October 5, 2001, Boca Raton

Stevens, 63, a photo editor at the tabloid newspaper The Sun, died of inhalation anthrax in Boca Raton, Florida. Authorities opened a criminal investigation into the killing but have not determined where the anthrax came from. However, officials did confirm that the type of anthrax that killed Stevens is the same strain that was mailed to NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw.

Dog shoots no one; McBride shoots self in foot repeatedly

Illusory Tenant says McBride sets the bar high in her post about a mis-reported "dog shoots owner" story:

... {I}f there is a lesson to be learned from the so-called teacher of journalism here, it's as a model of concision and brevity: it will be hard to top making so many errors and omissions in the space of a couple of paragraphs, even for McBride.

Sour Grapes Makes For A Bitter Whine

Apparently, McBride still isn't over the drubbing that J. B. Van Hollen gave her hubby, Paul Bucher, in last year's primary for Attorney General. She has, in the past, been generally critical of some of Van Hallen's decisions and writings. But now, she apparently has reached her threshold of tolerance for ole J.B., when he is praised in a column in the Wisconsin State Journal.

She even uses her old friend, Mark Belling, to bolster her argument.

All the two of them manage to do is show that they believe adhering to the law and the constitution are only for liberals, and that their brand of conservatism is above the law.

McBride wrong? Surely you jest

Ken Mobile says McBride gets it wrong when she beats up a Milwaukee alderman over his quote on housing sex offenders.

McBride gets it wrong? C'mon, Mobile! Who's gonna believe that?

Using the 's' word

Illusory Tenant has caught someone red-handed in "a textbook double standard" over use of a racially-charged term.

Guess who?

Overlooking the Obvious

In another swing and miss at a government-operated health care system, McBride tries to point to the uncaring quality of the English medical system. In her post, she quotes the story:

A woman aged 108 has been told she must wait 18 months before the HealthService will give her the hearing aid she needs. (DailyMail).

A commenter correctly points out that neither Medicare nor private insurers in this county even cover hearing aids. But what McBride somehow failed to notice in her desperate attack was the first four words of her quote.

The woman is 108 years old!!! How bad can their health system be if they're living to 108? Perhaps McBride should check with her own health care system to see if they cover her selective myopia.

Still carrying water for Walker

The latest pension abuse disclosures have prompted several observers to wonder how Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker could have allowed abuses to continue after he was elected on a pledge to clean up the pension mess.

During his last campaign for exec, we learned that Walker had broken his pledge to have all of his appointees sign waivers foregoing lucrative pension bonuses, and covered up the lack of waivers when questioned about it. Dave Umhoefer, the reporter who broke the last scandal, found that one, too.

Now we find that Walker has continued to allowed questionable if not illegal pension buybacks, fattening some employees' benefits, since he's been in office.

Others call for him to come clean and explain what he knew and when, and why he did what he did. But not McBride.

Still marching to Scott Walker's drummer, McBride is the exception. She notes the new information and asks:

Now will liberals and the MSM stop blaming Scott Walker for Milwaukee County's budget problems?

As she would say: Um, no.

Walker's been in office for 5 years, busily pointing fingers in every direction but his own and refusing to take responsibility for anything that's happened on his watch. The county's disastrous series of budget crises, about to explode again, forced him out of the race for governor. Even Walker didn't try to blame Tom Ament for that.

Simple answers for tough questions

In McBride World, life is simple and easy answers abound.

What to do about sex offenders when they are released back into society?

The solution? Mostly, lock them up longer. Supervise them better. Continue to make sure they don't work around kids or associate with kids in a setting where they would have frequent, close contact with them...

Still, if sex offenders have trouble finding somewhere to live, there is an easy fix for it. Don't molest kids, and you won't have the trouble.

Gee, why didn't any criminologists think of that?

It's sort of like her solution to poverty and unemployment: Everyone should get a job; the want ads are full of them.