RANDI RHODES SUSPENSION

Oh boy.

Air America host Randi Rhodes has been suspended because, while delivering a "standup routine" off the air at an Air America event for an affiliate, she called Hillary Clinton a "dirty f*king whore".

Over the line a tad? Yeah.

Look, it's one thing to slam a candidate for something they've said or done, but this is pure ad hominem name-calling of the most offensive kind. Even that could be defensible if it were funny, but it's not.

I understand what she was trying to do -be shocking and over the top, but in and of itself that isn't funny -particularly not in this context. Rhodes is noted for her pitt-bull style of political commentary and so a certain amount of aggression is expected, and because it's expected, it's not funny when she goes over the top. If it were unexpected -it would be funny. For example if Mother Theresa called Hillary a "dirty f*cking whore."

This is the same thing Michael Richards was trying to do, and just as when he did it, it wasn't funny. In his case it wasn't funny because he already has a "crazy" type of persona. Crazy and racist isn't a funny juxtoposition because it's not a far enough jump, i.e. you might expect a crazy person to utter racist statements.

The unexpected is funny -as an analogy consider the difference between people ignoring a dead body lying on the table at a morgue, and people ignoring a dead body lying on the table at a fancy dress dinner party.

In the latter case -the more outrageously disgusting the dead body is the funnier it is, whereas adding disgusting features to the body in the former scenario doesn't make it any more funny.

Additionally, Air America was completely justified in suspending her. True, this was not on the air, but it was at an Air America sponsored event, and the network can't be seen as sanctioning that kind of behavior -it'd kill them.

Moreover this is not a case of "censorship. The 1st Amendment only protects people from having their speech restricted by the government or by those acting under government authority. Having an FCC license doesn't make them a government entity any more than having a liquor license makes a liquor store into one. Air America is a private entity and is perfectly within its rights to have a policy restricting the behavior of its employees at one of its events. I would think they were incredibly stupid if they didn't suspend her.

So now Rhodes has been suspended and her career is in jeopardy, which is a shame because she has proven herself to be one of the more capable talk-radio voices because of her skill in distilling the issues and presenting them in an "average Joe" format.

Finally, it was horribly myopic of her not to realize that in the YouTube age -anything you say or do in public can be videoed and used to nail you.

Ironically, the person she was slamming (the Tigress of Tuzla as some have called her) found that out before she did

GRANDPA CONTINUES HIS FREE RIDE

Gee the MSM has completely absolved John McCainBush of his senior moments, and is happily ignoring his insisting on at least 4 occasions that Iran and Al Qaeda are working together to take over Iraq. Worse yet his minions like Sloppy Joe are spreading the ^&*% even more.

*sigh*

History Lesson (in a nutshell) folks:

"Al Qaeda" is the name given by us to the movement that was started by Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri based on the teachings of Said Qutb. Qutb was a Sunni Muslim from Egypt who, while attending school in America in the 1950's, became disenchanted with western ideas because he thought that they were leading to immorality and decadence (I mean boys and girls were actually dancing together for crying out loud!)

He left America and went back to Egypt where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood (another sunni extremist group founded in the 1920s.) and wrote a book called "Milestones" which stated that Egyptian leaders had become so corrupted that they were no longer to be considered muslims and therefore could be killed. Qutb was executed by the Egyptian government for conspiracy.

This book and Qutb's teachings influenced Ayman Al-Zawahiri who, after Qutb's execution went into hiding forming a terrorist cell to implement Qutb's teachings. This cell later became the Egyptian "Islamic Jihad" which tried a coup which Egypt defeated. Al Zawahiri was imprisoned. After he was released he met and became close with Usama Bin Laden who went to Afghanistan to help the Mujhaddin fight the USSR. The two reunited after that war, and Al Zawahiri merged his group with Bin Laden's.

There's much more detail to the story, but the point is that Al-Qaeda is a Sunni muslim group. Iran is a Shiite state.

McCain claims that Shiite Iran is training Sunni Al Qaeda against the US effort in Iraq. Here's what Al Zawahiri says:

"The dispute between America and Iran is a real dispute based on the struggle over areas of influence, and the possibility of America striking Iran is a real possibility. As for what might happen in the region, I can only say that major changes will occur in the region, and the situation (US attacking Iran) will be in the interest of [Al Qaeda] if the war saps both of them. If, however, one of them emerges victorious, its influence will intensify and fierce battles will begin between it and [Al Qaeda], except that the Jihadi awakening currently under way and the degeneration state of affairs of the invaders in Afghanistan and Iraq will make it impossible for Iran or America to become the sole decision-maker in the region." (emphasis and parentheses mine).

he also says

"With regard to Iraq, Iran achieved an agreement with the Americans before the latter's entry into Iraq. The agreement provided for partitioning Iraq. The Shiite militias trained, funded, and armed by Iran for years advanced violently and quickly into Iraq following the collapse of the Saddam regime. They were merged into the Iraqi Army and other Iraqi security services. They were and remain the Crusader occupier's paws used to strike at Muslims in Iraq"

Oh yeah, but Al Qaeda's training with Iran too?

Thank God McCain's got that Foreign Policy experience and has "passed the Commander in Chief threshold".

Keep on talking grandpa- right into insignificance.

MOVING UP IN THE WORLD?

HEY! I got "HuffPost's pick" for a comment I left regarding this article by Carlotta Cooper at Huffington Post about how Obama "risks alienating Clinton women and blue-collar supporters" -the subject of which -contrary to the headline- seems to be that if Obama doesn't say anything about his supporters asking Hillary to bow-out that he'll piss-off Hillary's supporters particularly her "base" of "older white women", and yet when he came out and said that Hillary has every right to stay in the race he was patronizing. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Here's what I said:

What amazes me about when people toss around the term "older white women" is that they ignore the first two words of the phrase and zero in on the third. This primary has in more ways than one become a decision about whether we want to hand the torch off to the next generation or keep it in the hands of the current older white ruling class.

Senator Clinton regardless her gender represents all the facets and foibles of the past. Would electing her be a positive milestone in our nation's history? Certainly. Would it dramatically change the power structure in Washington? Not a scintilla. She has spent her entire career trying to be accepted by the Washington circle tragically to find at last that a majority in the nation no longer want that in a president-a fact made all the more apparent by the convergence of two factors: the desperation to scrape off the slime of the bush years and the wild success of an unlikely candidate -Senator Obama.

The older white women need to realize that Clinton would provide them a Pyrrhic victory at best in the gender wars and that, for the sake of their progeny, they need to hand off that torch.

Not bad for an armchair pundit, eh?

HILLARY CLINTON CONCEDES

Via CNN:

AT LONG LAST!

Hillary's released her tax returns!!!!




(Hat-tip to the jed report)