Friday, June 27, 2014

Free speech needs to be free

If the awful Media Matters had been around in the 70s, David Frost would have been slammed for interviewing Tricky Dick Nixon -- or maybe Frost would have taken a pass to avoid the clanging from Media Matters and its echo chambers?

As Ava and I noted in "TV: That awful Rachel BadFoul," we reject the notion that someone is shut out of a national debate because they were wrong about something.

To have an honest discussion, people need to be able to make mistakes.

There's a difference in being wrong and in lying.

As someone who spoke out against the Iraq War before it started, I know that those of us against the illegal war were shut out of the debate in the MSM.  Why would I mistake petty revenge -- insisting the other side be shut out now -- for justice?

The discussions need to be wide ranging.  The answer is never to cut off the pro or the con side.  The answer is to let both compete in the public square and the argument that wins is the one that's the strongest.

It is amazing how many holler monkeys on the left are actually the identical twins of many on the right and don't grasp what free speech is or that you defend everyone's right to it.


Jules Witcover (Baltimore Sun) notes gadfly Eric Boehlert's latest nonsense at Media Matters which, yes, is another long whine that this person and that person must be shut out of the debate:

Or is the author trying to rehabilitate his own eight-year-old book on a compliant press, mentioned in his lament? 
Nowhere in this screed is any light shed on whether Jonathan Karl ever took any position on the air for or against the invasion of Iraq that would put him in league as a "media elite" with the "Iraq war architects" like Mr. Cheney. It does not seem to dawn on the author that by asking Mr. Cheney and other "war sponsors" about it, voters can be reminded of how wrong these experts were about what arguably was the worst foreign-policy misadventure in American history.


Poor Media Matters, poor David Brock.  People are tired of their shortcuts, their distortions and their lies.

That David Brock was ever accepted by the left goes to a lack of standards.  Don't forget, Naomi Wolf was his entry point, the 'feminist' who refused to help a rape victim in college because her boyfriend belonged to the frat -- a gang-rape victim -- and she thought stepping forward or even objecting would get her called a "lesbian."  It's been one long series of dubious decisions for Naomi.  All David Brock did was allow the left to (a) be distracted and (b) embrace the worst of the right-wing.  David poisoned the right-wing, we were idiots to let him come over and reproduce the same methods but for 'our side.'

It's interesting when these people make their arguments for censorship, they really need a stupid and forgetful public to do so.  For example, Rachel Maddow supported the Iraq War.  Who is she to call out anyone for being wrong about the illegal war?  Why isn't Media Matters insisting Joshua Michah Marshall stop speaking since he, also, supported the Iraq War?  Ezra Klein, same deal.

It's funny how Media Matters and their ilk are  so concerned now but when their friends were getting jobs -- their friends who supported the Iraq War -- they didn't decry that.  They didn't ask why those who were right about the illegal war weren't getting hired.


Now they fret and freak over the likes of Dick Cheney.

Some of us stood up to Cheney in real time.  We still can.

But little babies can't stand up, they need to be held because they're babies, not adults.

If all Media Matters has to offer is, "Don't let ____ speak!," maybe they should go silent themselves.



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