Monday, November 18, 2013

Martin Bashir’s Crude Attack on Sarah Palin.

Martin Bashir: Someone should defecate in Sarah Palin’s mouth. By Melissa Quinn. Red Alert Politics, November 16, 2013. Video at YouTube.

Mark Levin Makes Mincemeat Out of Martin Bashir. Fox Nation, November 18, 2013. Also at Mediaite, Real Clear Politics, YouTube.




Martin Bashir apologizes for dirty, disgusting slam at Sarah Palin. By Howard Kurtz. FoxNews.com, November 18, 2013.

Martin Bashir: “I am Truly Sorry” for Sarah Palin Comments. By Katherine Fung. The Huffington Post, November 18, 2013.

The Sexual Life of an Eighteenth-Century Jamaican Slave Overseer. By Trevor Burnard. Sex and Sexuality in Early America. Edited by Merrill D. Smith. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Chapter 7. Also here.

Despicable: MSNBC’s Bashir Wishes Sarah Palin Would Be Defecated, Urinated On. By Noel Sheppard. NewsBusters, November 15, 2013.

Transcript:

MARTIN BASHIR: It’s time now to clear the air. And we end this week in the way it began – with America’s resident dunce, Sarah Palin, scraping the barrel of her long deceased mind, and using her all-time favorite analogy in an attempt to sound intelligent about the national debt.
 
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
 
SARAH PALIN: Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children, and borrowing from China. When that note comes due – and this isn’t racist, so try it. Try it anyway. This isn’t racist. But it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due.
 
(END VIDEO CLIP)
 
BASHIR: It’ll be like slavery. Given her well-established reputation as a world class idiot, it’s hardly surprising that she should choose to mention slavery in a way that is abominable to anyone who knows anything about its barbaric history. So here’s an example.
 
One of the most comprehensive first-person accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years. Thistlewood was the son of a tenant farmer who arrived on the island of Jamaica in April 1750, and assumed the position of overseer at a major plantation. What is most shocking about Thistlewood’s diary is not simply the fact that he assumes the right to own and possess other human beings, but is the sheer cruelty and brutality of his regime.
 
In 1756, he records that “A slave named Darby catched eating canes; had him well flogged and pickled, then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth.” This became known as Darby’s dose, a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of the slave owners savagery and inhumanity.
 
And he mentions a similar incident again in 1756, this time in relation to a man he refers to as Punch. “Flogged Punch well, and then washed and rubbed salt pickle, lime juice and bird pepper; made Negro Joe piss in his eyes and mouth.” I could go on, but you get the point.
 
When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.




Mark Shields: If Obamacare Fails, “This Is The End . . . of Liberal Government.”

Shields and Brooks on waning ACA confidence and its impact on liberal government. Video and transcript. PBS NewsHour, November 15, 2013. YouTube.

PBS Dem Pundit Mark Shields: If Obamacare Fails, “This Is The End . . . of Liberal Government.” By Tim Graham. NewsBusters, November 16, 2013.

Mark “Maxi” Shields in Crisis: Obamacare Failure Could Spell the End of Liberalism. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, November 18, 2013.


NewsHour transcript:

MARK SHIELDS: Judy, this is beyond the Obama administration. If this goes down, if the Obama – if health care, the Affordable Care Act is deemed a failure, this is the end – I really mean it – of liberal government, in the sense of any sense that government as an instrument of social justice, an engine of economic progress, which is what divides Democrats from Republicans – that’s what Democrats believe.
 
And that’s what Democrats believe. Time and again, social programs have made the difference in this country. The public confidence in that will be so depleted, so diminished, that I really think the change – the equation of American politics changes.
 
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is your view that dire?
 
DAVID BROOKS: I agree with that.
 
I think it’s – I don’t know if it’s permanent, but it will be a severe blow to the idea of expanded liberal governments. My big thought is, are we no longer the kind of country in which you can pass this sort of thing? And by that, I mean, when you were passing the New Deal or the Great Society, there were winners and losers.
 
But the losers felt part of a larger collective and they said, OK, I’m going to take a hit for the team. We may no longer have that sense of being part of a larger collective, so when you’re a loser, you just say, I’m a loser. And, as a result, you’re just not willing to be part of the group.
 
And the penalty for being part of the loser just makes you want to hit whoever made you the loser.