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I haven’t had time to pursue a real serious Weekend Open Thread this week, so here’s a controversy snagged off of the web, featuring local blog product Vox. The point of the story is: will the media treat Bernie Sanders fairly or unfairly? The answer is: way, way, way beyond unfairly. Enough that they should dry up and blow away out of shame.
The Washington Post’s “fact-checker” — and to be truly accurate I should put both of those words in separate scare quotes — is an ambulatory piece of toilet tissue named Glenn Kessler. Here’s what he wrote in response to Bernie Sanders’s contention that he learned the importance of political participation when he learned that Adolf Hitler came to power after winning an election:
Germany’s president, Paul von Hindenburg, was nearing the end of his seven-year term and showing signs of weakness and senility. Hindenburg was a popular war hero but he did not want to run again; however, he was persuaded to seek a second term by party leaders of the Catholic Centre Party, Social Democrats and liberals who were wary of the growing power of the Nazis.
Hitler, having in the meantime secured German citizenship, waged an energetic campaign for the presidency, making full use of new technology such as film. But he placed a distant second when the elections were held March 13, 1932. Hindenburg received 49.6 percent, just short of a majority to avoid a run-off, compared to 30.1 percent for Hitler.
When the run-off election (with three candidates) took place April 10, Hindenburg received 53 percent and Hitler 36.8 percent.
A writer from Vox wrote back with a searing rebuttal of Mr. Kessler’s imbecility — his giving Sanders one “Pinocchio” would have been bad enough, but giving him FOUR of them is like begging to be fired while actually hurling bags of feces at readers — which is really good reading, and I suggest that you get right to it.
Hitler wouldn’t have come to power absent the Nazis winning a plurality of seats in 1932. Hindenburg was loath to hand over the chancellorship to Hitler; it was his refusal to accept a Nazi-led government that forced a snap election in November right after one in July. And even then, Hindenburg held out for months. Only when it became clear that a right-wing government led by someone other than Hitler was completely untenable, given the makeup of parliament, did Hindenburg let Hitler accede to the chancellorship in January 1933.
Moreover, this bizarre historical nitpicking totally loses sight of Sanders’s ultimate, utterly banal point: that who wins elections matters, and that this is evidenced by the fact that the Nazis rose to power in no small part by winning seats in the Reichstag. We can argue all day about the relative power of the Reichspresident versus the Reichskanzler, but no one in their right mind would argue that Hitler could’ve risen to power if the Nazis hadn’t won the 1932 parliamentary elections.
Kessler has done this sort of stupid crank-yanking in other election years, and if there is a way to shame him into leaving the Post, Washington DC, and journalism altogether I would truly love to hear it.
Yet, to be entirely fair to the Post, they also had an article on scientific research into animal genitalia, which you should also read — and from therein click the link above the photo of a couple of ducks to get to the fascinating article on why, shockingly, such research has been slanted towards the study of male outside-fanciness rather than female inside-fanciness (and thank you for giving us that delicate way to phrase things, Mr. Fred Rogers.)
In other news, this weekend (or so) marks the 60th anniversary of the lynching murder (for the “crime” of allegedly whistling at a white woman) of Emmitt Till, sort of the Trayvon Martin of his day; the 45th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium in which (among other things) journalist Ruben Salazar was killed the a tear gas projectile during a police riot; the 40th anniversary of the birth of actress Sara Ramirez of Spamalot and Grey’s Anatomy; and the 20th anniversary of the first publication of the OC Weekly, and — oh yeah — the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (please read this link for a sense of how it changed New Orleans.) Only three of these involved violent tragedies (and yes, I’m counting Katrina.)
This is your Weekend Open Thread: talk about that and whatever else you’d like, within reasonable bounds of decorum and discretion.
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2015/08/poseidon_desalination_controversy_2015.php
See, here’s the OC Weekly justifying at least some of its next 20 years! Good coverage of Poseidon (although not as early as some.)
From the Department of Didn’t Make It into the Weekend Open Thread:
Malware Maven John McAfee argues that Ashley Madison wasn’t hacked from outside, but sabotaged from inside by a yet-to-be-identified disgruntled female employee.
Luckily, on the presumption that no one from Orange County used the site, this story is not of local interest.
As for the finding that under 1500 of the over 20,000,000 active Ashley Madison accounts belonged to women, the conclusion that men were therefore using it just for harmless vicarious sexual fantasies ignores the possibility that it could have been largely used for men seeking discrete affairs with other men. That sort of oversight of the obvious at this point in history seems sort of quaint.
*Speaking of Donald Trump….oh, you are not speaking of Donald Trumpkavitz? Well, you are probably plum fascinated by his latest utterances. Here is what we have done:
Every time some news source (and we use that term liberally) that is covering what Donald is doing today – we simply do what we used to do with the Weather girl on CBSLA before we got the wonderful Evelyn Taft or Jackie Johnson – we changed channel. We now employ that same method for Donald Trump. Someone tries to cover him, we change the channel. Sanity is important, and only those on serious drugs can possibly put up with watching even another syllable of Donnie boy!
Not me, I can’t stop watching him.
What no mention of Chairman Shitzer pulling a gun and handcuffing a crazy Jesus Freak……on Good Friday?
You guys are slow. Slower than the other blogs that burried this (thanks Noberto)for six months.
I for one HATE religious fanatics But, I hate gang members, welfare mongers and meth heads too. I guess I should add gun toting handcuff holding politicians too.
You know so much about us. Where you been the last few years?