Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced today that they have reached a deal to close California's $26.3-billion deficit and begin paying all of the state's bills again.
The agreement does not include any broad-based tax increases, they said, and relies largely on deep cuts in government services to wipe out the deficit.
Most of the details have yet to be released. But interviews with lawmakers and staff involved in the negotiations suggest that the plan would reshape government in California, significantly scaling back many services that have been offered to residents -- particularly the elderly and the poor -- for years.
In addition, tens of thousands of seniors and children would lose access to healthcare, local governments would sacrifice billions of dollars in state assistance this year and large numbers of state prisoners would have their sentences scaled back. Welfare checks would go to fewer residents, state workers would be forced to continue to take unpaid days off and new drilling for oil would be permitted off the Santa Barbara coast.
"There isn't a whole lot of good news in this budget," said Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).
But the agreement does not "eliminate the safety net for California," said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles).
Schwarzenegger emphasized the lack of new taxes in the package, and said he hopes the full Legislature will vote on it Thursday.
No new taxes? Okay, but where's the money coming from? Twenty-six billion is a lot of dough!
Actually, not much there, and looking for information, it turns out that California will drill, baby, drill! From the San Francisco Chronicle, "State Leaders Have Tentative Plan to Fix Budget":
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders reached a tentative budget compromise Monday to plug a $26.3 billion deficit by making hefty cuts in education, health and welfare services, and taking billions of dollars from county governments.
The plan also includes allowing an off-shore oil drilling project near Santa Barbara and keeping most state parks open. Prison spending would be cut but inmates would not be released early ...
Also, the New York Times, "California Reaches Budget Deal, With Billions Cut." Oh, ouch! Now I see it! Lots of educational and social policy cuts coming down the pipeline. So, it won't be just environmentalists who're going to be pissed!
Lawyers for sportscaster Erin Andrews have vowed to find and prosecute the peeping tom who surreptitiously videotaped the naked ESPN reporter through a hole in a hotel room wall and posted the video on the Internet.
Searches for the video, posted online to numerous sites including YouTube but seemingly taken down over the weekend, topped Google's list of most searched items this morning. Many of the searchers were looking for cached versions of the removed clip, but were instead exposed to viral malware programs a common occurrence for widely searched Internet content.
Andrews, 31, a statuesque blonde who joined the network in 2004, has legions of fans around the sports blogosphere, contributing to the rapid and rabid interest in the video.
"While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent. She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future," her lawyer, Marshall B. Grossman said in a statement.
According to Grossman, the filmmaker remains unknown. A spokesman for ESPN would not confirm whether investigators have any leads regarding where the video was shot or who might be responsible.
"Although the perpetrator or perpetrators of this criminal act have not yet been identified, when they are identified she intends to bring both civil and criminal charges against them and against anyone who has published the material. We request respect of Erin's privacy at this time, while she and her representatives are working with the authorities," said Grossman.
The video purportedly shows Andrews changing clothes in an unknown hotel room, unaware that she is being filmed.
It is unclear if the video was shot through a specially-made hole in a wall or door, or through the hotel door's peephole.
A cached clip found by ABC News, but of unconfirmed authenticity, shows grainy images of a naked woman whom the camera seems to be following, indicating the camera may be hand held.
He's not joking when he says that "Searches for the video ... topped Google's list of most searched items this morning." You can just check my FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed for the evidence! (Actually, Bing and Yahoo are sending me the bulk of the traffic.)
A cached clip found by ABC News, but of unconfirmed authenticity, shows grainy images of a naked woman whom the camera seems to be following, indicating the camera may be hand held.
You think?!!
We need experts! Assemble a crack CSI team! Top hypothesis? A cellphone? Nah, not exciting! Besides, criminal voyeurism is outrancière!
But wait!
TMZ is also on the case, on the cheap exploitation angle! See, "Erin Andrews Nude Video Peddled for Profit." OMG!!WHO KNEW?!! That's despicable! What's gotten into people nowadays? And TMZ adds, "It appears the video was shot from some sort of spy cam. It looks as if someone drilled a small hole in her hotel room from an adjoining room" [updated].
Personally, I think Erin Andrews, and women like her (for she's certainly not alone in the sideline bimbo parade) set back women in sports media about 100 years. It makes me sad for women like Mary Carillo, Linda Cohn, and Melissa Isaacsson, who I'm sure had a much tougher row to hoe and are far more interesting to me than Erin Andrews.
That meme really goes against the analysis I reported yesterday, that essentially, Andrews wears, for most jocks, TOO MUCH clothing (a good thing), and she is in fact totally professional about her job.
Plus, Michael Rand, at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, essentially blames sports-culture mania, and basically, Andrews' fans themselves:
To the vast majority of male sports fans on the Internet, the Andrews explosion is fairly harmless. She is an attractive woman working in sports who happened to come along at a time when that would be a big deal. Bloggers and commenters can make the requisite borderline statements concerning Andrews without creating a more serious obsession in their minds. That said, the collective weight of the Andrews explosion is almost certainly a factor in the awful thing that has happened.
Earlier today, I sent a snippet of the video, still being passed around the internet like samizdat, to a helpful guy named Jon from Spy Tec Inc. in New York, a company that specializes in "the finest surveillance and detection equipment on the market today." He says the peeper was probably in an adjoining hotel room (not, as many people seem to think, on the other side of a peephole), having threaded a gooseneck or fiber-optic camera through a hole in the wall about a quarter-inch across. "I doubt the wall was concrete," says Jon, who asked me not to use his last name. "Any kind of sheetrock or plaster, you could use a penknife, if you have the time to do it."
It goes without saying that when you’re a good looking female in a high-profile line of work, people are going to want to see you naked. Call it an indictment on our society if you must, but it’s simply a fact of life. It’s why the paparazzi exist, after all.
Eventually, you had to figure that the gotta-see-you-naked hype would catch up to ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews. It’s just too bad that when it happened, it would end up being a really creepy crime.
Andrews is the bane of every sports fan’s existence. An unattainable goddess of sorts that can turn heads on a low-def, 20-inch Hitachi from across the room. Since the reality of the situation is that most of us will never, EVER hook up with a celebrity in any facet of our mere existence, we make up for our inabilities by scouring the internet for naked pictures or videos of such individuals.
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UPDATE II: The Erin Andrews story continues to take off ...
It seems wrong to even mention Erin Andrews' name in a context other than the quality of her work.
Andrews is a talented, hardworking ESPN reporter who is meticulous in her preparation, who understands sports and has a personality that makes both coaches and players feel comfortable talking to her. Heck, she even took a line drive off the chin in a baseball clubhouse and came right back to work, bruise and all.
But to some Andrews is a pretty face with an attractive body and is fair game to be cyber-ogled. Last summer a newspaper sports columnist, Mike Nadel, wrote a suggestive column taking Andrews to task for daring to wear summer clothes in the summer. USC player Rey Maualuga apologized to Andrews after he simulated a lewd dance with her on the field before this year's Rose Bowl while Andrews was unaware of his presence. Andrews kindly accepted the apology and moved on.
Over the weekend Andrews was big on the Internet again. Again, unknown to her, she was apparently videotaped while she was alone in her hotel room. The videotape purportedly showing Andrews undressed was posted and linked to on various websites until her lawyer said lawsuits would be filed against sites that continued showing the video. One of the websites that linked to the video and is well known for often posting items with sexual slants about female athletes and broadcasters, actually wrote a self-righteous message about the so-far unknown videotaper having crossed a line.
Nope, guys, that line had already been crossed. But now it's just a little scarier.
ESPN reporter Erin Andrews got screwed. Bigtime. Nude spy video on the Internet screwed.
But in an ironic twist, malware distribution may play an unexpected role in somewhat lessening the sting of the incident. At least a little.
To anyone who has followed her career as I have as a sports addict, and admittedly not always for her reporting talents alone, the breaking of the peephole video claiming to be Ms. Andrews unclothed, a contention that the ESPN sideline specialist has apparently confirmed, is striking for a number of reasons.
Andrews, the daughter of an Emmy-winning television news reporter, is gorgeous.
There's just no way around it. And like some other very attractive female sports reporters before her, including ESPN colleagues Colleen Dominguez and Sam Ryan, it's almost seemed at some points that she's almost had to work harder and conduct herself a lot more seriously than some of her less eye-catching peers, to downplay her looks a bit, just because... well, it's hard to miss on TV that she's beautiful. And that doesn't always lend credibility. Especially on ESPN.
Seems ridiculous right? But as much as being good looking can help get you onto TV, it can become a major issue if you're a woman covering something and your target audience is, even in this day of worldwide sports mania, still mostly made up of guys.
Especially if you're trying to be taken very seriously as a reporter whilst covering a lot of men's athletics, which undoubtedly she has all around.
There's a certain extra mile than any woman covering men's sports still needs to go to be widely accepted as nothing more than a pretty smile even in this era of near-ubiquitous women's appearances in sports reporting. (How many hotel rooms have I seen Linda Cohn in on a business trip? More than Stuart Scott? Maybe!)
And to anyone who has been watching, Andrews has clearly been running it; doggedly in fact, and for a few years now - covering everything from the NHL playoffs to the National Spelling Bee and almost everything in between.
Great piece (read the rest, here). Pretty much undercuts the woman who was bashing Andrews above as "setting back women in sports media 100 years." Being pretty meant she had to work harder! Imagine that ...
My prayers are with the family of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier seen on the Taliban abduction video released this weekend. The Jawa Report has the full clip.
All Americans should hope and pray for his release from jihadi custody.
There’s one question I have, though, about strange details initially reported on the case — details which have been deleted from later wire dispatches ...
Read the whole thing, here. Also, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters argues for a hard penalty if it's shown Bergdahl abandoned his unit:
I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I’m with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime, I don’t care how hard it sounds, as far as I’m concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.
On his 15th birthday, Christopher Hill got his first cellphone. For his 16th, he was given a used red Ford Ranger pickup, a source of pride he washed every week.
Mr. Hill, a diligent student with a reputation for helping neighbors, also took pride in his clean driving record. “Not a speeding ticket, not a fender bender, nothing,” he said.
Until last Sept. 3. Mr. Hill, then 20, left the parking lot of a Goodwill store where he had spotted a dresser he thought might interest a neighbor. He dialed her to pass along news of the find.
Mr. Hill was so engrossed in the call that he ran a red light and didn’t notice Linda Doyle’s small sport utility vehicle until the last second. He hit her going 45 miles per hour. She was pronounced dead shortly after.
Later, a policeman asked Mr. Hill what color the light had been. “I never saw it,” he answered.
Extensive research shows the dangers of distracted driving. Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated. Research also shows that hands-free devices do not eliminate the risks, and may worsen them by suggesting that the behavior is safe.
A 2003 Harvard study estimated that cellphone distractions caused 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries.
Yet Americans have largely ignored that research. Instead, they increasingly use phones, navigation devices and even laptops to turn their cars into mobile offices, chat rooms and entertainment centers, making roads more dangerous.
A disconnect between perception and reality worsens the problem. New studies show that drivers overestimate their own ability to safely multitask, even as they worry about the dangers of others doing it.
Device makers and auto companies acknowledge the risks of multitasking behind the wheel, but they aggressively develop and market gadgets that cause distractions.
Police in almost half of all states make no attempt to gather data on the problem. They are not required to ask drivers who cause accidents whether they were distracted by a phone or other device. Even when officers do ask, some drivers are not forthcoming.
The federal government warns against talking on a cellphone while driving, but no state legislature has banned it. This year, state legislators introduced about 170 bills to address distracted driving, but passed fewer than 10.
Five states and the District of Columbia require drivers who talk on cellphones to use hands-free devices, but research shows that using headsets can be as dangerous as holding a phone because the conversation distracts drivers from focusing on the road.
Fourteen states have passed measures to ban texting while driving, and the New York State Assembly sent such a bill to the governor on Friday.
The states that rejected any efforts to limit distracted driving this year include Oklahoma.
“I’m on the phone from when I leave the Capitol to when I get home, and that’s a two-hour drive,” said Tad Jones, the majority floor leader in the Oklahoma House, who helped block the legislation. “A lot of people who travel are used to using the phone.”
Scientists who study distracted driving say they understand the frustrations of colleagues who publicized the dangers of tobacco. Like cigarettes, they say, gadgets are considered cool but can be deadly. And the big device companies even offer warnings that remind them of labels on cigarette packs.
Verizon Wireless, for instance, posts instructions on its Web sites not to talk while driving — with or without a headset. But neither Verizon nor any other cellphone company supports legislation that bans drivers from talking on the phone. And the wireless industry does not conduct research on the dangers, saying that is not its responsibility.
Some researchers say that sufficient evidence exists to justify laws outlawing cellphone use for drivers — and they suggest using technology to enforce them by disabling a driver’s phone. “Just outlawing the behavior cannot possibly go very far toward getting people not to do it,” said Robert D. Foss, senior research scientist at the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina. “The behavior is too ingrained and compelling.”
For his part, Mr. Hill rarely talks when he drives now. His mother gave him a hands-free headset two months after the accident. She thought it would create less distraction. He tried it once, and found his mind wandering into his phone call so much that “I nearly missed a light,” he said.
He pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, for the death of Ms. Doyle. Now, when he is a passenger in a car, it makes him nervous when the driver starts talking on the phone. But Mr. Hill, who is polite and deferential, said he doesn’t want to badger drivers about the risks.
“I hope they don’t have to go through what I did to realize it’s a problem,” he added.
This is really interesting. Both citizens and lawmakers are turning a blind eye to the extreme dangers of new wireless technology. How many of us continue to drive everyday when we know, by common sense and empirical reality, that cellphone use behind the wheel is deadly.
We've had a lot of weighty moral issues discussed at this blog the last couple of days. I suspect "driving to distraction"might get less of a hearing at the comment boards.
From Steve Benen, on Senator Mitch McConnell speaking on Obamacare on yesterday's Meet the Press:
... McConnell continues to think the system is, at its core, fine. A few tax cuts here, a few tax cuts there, throw in some restrictions on lawsuits, and voila, problem solved. There's no need for major change, when some tinkering will get the job done.
The right are radical authoritarian Nazi types and the left are radical progressives who want to change the system in favor of the hoi polloi. These so-called centrists are actually conservatives who maintain the status quo -- which always works in favor of the moneyed interests.
The only time we even get a chance to move forward is when these people fuck things up so badly that there is simply no choice but to change something and then it's usually a battle between us and the Nazis for who gets a turn at the table.
Monday morning Internet surfers are burning up the pipelines trying to get a glimpse of the Erin Andrews nude video. Bing and Yahoo are currently sending me loads of traffic. Alta Vista and Dogpile are also sending the occasional visitor. There's no "Google-bomb," however, as I mentioned last night at my post, "Voyeur Demand for Erin Andrews Story." Google has altered the algorithm to limit Internet searches for the video.
But for a clue as to what's driving the traffic, check the comments at "SBR Forum":
Totally awesome! Whoever shot this video is a HERO! Andrews' lawyer issued a statement yesterday CONFIRMING IT IS HER! I bet you he's the one who shot it.
Whoever did shoot this has some no-nonsense skills, he obviously knows how to get in, position himself WELL, get the shot, and escape like a pro, completely undetected. They'll never catch him, he's obviously 5 steps ahead of them. Next up, he should get the entire female wing of the Palin family.
Nickel - I believe that the privacy of ugly women should be sacred, and indeed, it still is. This video does cross the line - INTO PURE AWESOMENESS AND VICTORY BABY! Score one for the home team on this one baby!
There are clear differences between the Erin Andrews and Carrie Prejean stories (Erin Andrews was stalked and violated; Carrie Prejean gave consent). But as far as Internet traffic goes, for the raging testosterone driven sports-jock, both episodes were "victories for the home team"!
Mr. Netanyahu has been explicit ... about his conditions for a deal. He says the Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Palestinian negotiators reject such recognition, contending it would preclude the demand of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants for the right of return to their former homes, and be detrimental to the status of Israel’s Arab minority.
Mr. Netanyahu adds that the problem of the refugees has to be resolved outside the borders of Israel and that Israel will only accept defensible borders, and he wants international guarantees that any Palestinian state will be fully demilitarized.
Although talk of peace, "two states for two peoples" and the "Arab League initiative" fill the lofty speeches of American and European leaders, the political war to delegitimize Israel is accelerating.
Officials of the Arab League and the Palestinian Authority, working with powerful groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, exploit the rhetoric of international law to brand Israeli defense against terror as "war crimes" and "collective punishment." As a result, talk of peace process continues to be a façade, demonstrating that the core ideology and objectives - the elimination of Jewish sovereignty and statehood - remain unchanged since 1947.
The Gaza war that took place six months ago, like the 2006 Second Lebanon War, provided major platforms for accelerating political warfare against Israel. Erasing the context of Hamas rocket attacks, this coalition uses international frameworks to pursue a campaign of delegitimization. The UN Human Rights Council's Goldstone Commission, with a mandate that found Israel guilty before any "evidence" was gathered, is one example, and there are many more.
These objectives unite the "moderates" and "radicals" who, on other issues, are bitter enemies. In theory, the PA, dominated by Yasser Arafat's old Fatah organization, is supposed to be the moderate wing and Israel's peace partner, while Hamas, which controls Gaza, is the militant Islamic terror group. But in campaigns to label Israel as an "apartheid state," Mahmoud Abbas' PA and Amr Mousa's Arab League are on the front lines.
Here is the entire video showing Private Bowe Berdahl in Taliban captivity. The Taliban have threatened to murder him if the U.S. does not leave Afghanistan ....
This video reminds me why I began to blog in the first place. I want these Taliban dead. Killed. Annihilated.
The reason the GOP sucked so badly in the last election has absolutely nothing to do with Bob Barr and/or libertarians. It had to do with how poorly your party governed. Like most libertarians I haven’t voted for a Republican since Reagan. And frankly what happened to the size of government under Reagan is one reason why. Bush compounded the problem (Medicare Part D? “No Child Left Behind”?) and the eternally squishy McCain promised more of the same.
Hell, I didn't even know who Erin Andrews is, not having watched ESPN in a while ... And assuming this is legit, you are perpetuating a crime by linking the video - which I won't do.
In the world of love, dating, and marriage – a few men have weighed in on stories regarding women and weight.
It seems that our obsession with thin women has taken such a hold these days, that the beautiful Erin Andrews, sports reporter for ESPN was the victim of a peeping Tom incident in the privacy of her hotel room.
The video went viral and fortunately not just her attorneys but sportscasters are denouncing her invasion of privacy.
This is just an example of what happens in a society in which we place so much value on external beauty.
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UPDATE II: Don Surber responds by email, and writes a post on it, "Email of the Day":
OK.
I give up.
Who is Erin Andrews and why should I care/be surprised that she has a video of her naked?
Doesn’t every female celeb under 30?
It seems there will be no stopping the propagation of this video now, despite the threat of legal action by Andrews. ThePirateBay, on which the torrent file is linked, was acquired recently, in part due to legal issues.
Erin Andrews may now be the most sought after woman in sports -- and all because of an elusive peephole video that has been uploaded to the internet. The Erin Andrews peephole video has gone viral -- or at least articles and ads purporting to have the Erin Andrews peephole video have gone viral -- and the internet has been ablaze for the past couple days with traffic either accessing or attempting to access the comely sports announcer's naked form via a video filmed without her knowledge. For her part, she has issued a legal statement through her lawyers that once the perpetrator or perpetrators are found, they will be prosecuted.
And rightly so...
Erin Andrews, for those who still have no idea who she is, works for ESPN as a sports reporter. Apart from being extremely attractive and popular, she is very good at her job. And although the more cynical will say that Erin Andrews has made it as far as she has primarily because of her looks, it must be noted that, if true, it isn't because she has calculatingly used her beauty to become a popular ESPN sports reporter. You won't find half a dozen swimsuit calendars with Erin Andrews posed provocatively atop the months of the year. And you won't find any nude photos or Playboy spreads (although she has been voted Playboy's Sexiest Sports Announcer).
And no sex tape. There is no Erin Andrews sex tape.
But you can find her in hundreds of photos on the web. For some, she wears far too many clothes, but clothed she is. And her photos (and videos) rarely show her in anything overly provocative, although she doesn't steer away from the forming fitting pair of slacks or an accentuating sweater. (There is nothing wrong with dressing for success or simply looking presentable. Male sports announcers are not seen running the sidelines in sweats or a ragged t-shirt and jeans.)
Still, Erin Andrews seems to have taken great pains over the years to be taken as a serious sports reporter, announcer, and journalist.
But there is an Erin Andrews peephole video and if people were sick of seeing everything Erin Andrews on the internet, they had seen nothing compared to the traffic onslaught of the search for the peephole video. Which will in turn lead to Erin Andrews popularity and fame skyrocketing. It is known as the "Paris Hilton Law," or something to that effect. Naked photos, videos, or sex tapes tend to do that for an attractive woman's career these days, but those images are usually taken with their consent. They may have not been placed on the internet by their consent (and usually are not), but the photos et. al. of them in their various degrees of nakedness were taken with their knowledge and consent.
Erin Andrews peephole video was not.
And internet users apparently want to see it because it has remained one of the most searched topics on the internet for the past several days. With the various websites being tracked down and shut down by Erin Andrews' lawyers and threats of lawsuits, the peephole video has also become something of a hide-and-seek game. Users have been treated with search terms like "Erin Andrews peephole video," "Erin Andrews peephole video google cache," and "Erin Andrews peephole video rapidshare." No doubt there have been hundreds of articles and blogs written about the elusiveness of the video (this writer has read about a dozen simply researching this article), many of them complaining about the unavailability of the peephole video once they arrive, or that there is some form of locking quiz to complete in order to access the video, or that the link was simply a scam to get the user to access the target website with no intention of showing the Erin Andrews peephole video.
Cassandra's right. This was a crime and no one should take advantage of it by "Google-bombing" the crime.
Stacy McCain is a great guy, but all of you McCainiacs ought to remove your lips from around his ass sometime.
My response? Again, this is news, obviously.
As for the McCainiacs, well, if folks want to draw lines, fine. I have no problems reporting on a hot news story of a hot ESPN news reporter who's the victim of a crime, with ... links. Nope, doesn't bother me at all ...
As for Robert Stacy McCain and the McCainiacs? Well, there are limits, and here's a big, bright line: With all due respect, I wouldn't photograph my neighbor in a bikini by the pool, getting out of the shower topless, or shaving her legs in the bathroom. I am linking to the post though, for the purposes of argument. The difference between the Erin Andrew link and those links right here is that the latter have absolutely zero news values. Still, no doubt Cassandra or someone else will say I'm perpetuating the invasion. That's fine, if you think so, don't click the links. Again, to repeat: DON'T CLICK THE LINKS!!
I have no interest in watching the video and just now saw Dr. Douglas's post.
Criminal voyeurism isn't sexy. Nevertheless, crime is news, and the fact that so many people felt the need to comment on it just goes to show why the most famous headline in history was the New York Post's "HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR." Or, as Hunter S. Thompson observed in Hell's Angels, "Every editor loves a good rape."
Maybe this is another example of how New Media helps demystify what Old Media has been doing for years. Dr. Douglas shows you the strings in the puppet show - "Look, I'm shamefully exploiting prurient interest!" - and you say, "That's disgusting!"
Atwater Councilman Gary Frago has apologized for distributing racially-insensitive e-mails to friends and local government officials. KFSN-TV Fresno has the story, "Atwater Racist Emails":
The emails were sent out by Councilman Gary Frago. Frago said they were meant to be a joke, but many people aren't laughing, calling them offensive and racist.
"They weren't sent as a racist, viscous act. They were sent as a very stupid act, and I don't know how many times I can say tell you I'm sorry."
Atwater city councilman Gary Frago is defending himself after e-mails he sent out surfaced in Friday's Merced-Sun Star newspaper. "If I could retract them all, knowing what I know now, I would retract all of them."
If you check the video, the black gentleman who is interviewed refuses to accept Frago's apology. Also, from a post at the black politics blog, Electronic Villiage, "Personally, I think that Frago should lose his seat on the city council."
The e-mails are clearly unacceptable, and recipents should delete them like any other piece of hateful spam. Frago appears genuinely upset and he admits that forwarding the e-mails was stupid.
But, how much does this tell us about racism in America?
One of the more interesting responses comes from Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Now I'm Not Racist ..." He writes:
One cool thing about the Obama presidency is, far from leading us into a postracial America, it's actually revealing that significant minority of white folks, (35-40 percent? Too optimistic?) who are not racist, but just really really don't like black people Al Sharpton. Take this latest installment in what is, basically, a weekly drama:
In the past several months Atwater City Councilman Gary Frago has sent at least a half-dozen e-mails to city staff and other prominent community members containing racist jokes aimed at President Barack Obama, his wife and black people in general...
Actually no. And second, even if it were, would that fact support Ta-Nehisi's contention that 60-65 percent of "white folks" are racist? That statistic just hangs out there as some monstrous indictment of America as irredeemably racist. - a meme which is standard on the Democratic-left.
The problem? It's simply not true. Poll after poll shows that Americans are more tolerant towards blacks today than at any time in history. One of the most important indicators of views on race relations are the findings on interracial marriage. In particular, opposition to a black-white interracial marriage has always been a standard measure of entrenched racism. According to Earl Black and Merle Black, in Politics and Society in the South, progress on inter-personal relations is the last barrier of the "color line" that has divided Americans since the Founding. And so interestestingly, a look at the data reveals dramatic acceptance of interracial marriage today, and hence greater tolerance and racial acceptance. See, Gallup, "Most Americans Approve of Interracial Marriages." Also, Pew Research, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: 22% of Americans Have a Relative in a Mixed-Race Marriage."
Sometimes it's argued that it's the younger cohort of Americans who account for the change. That is, the old guard bigots are as racist as ever. Consequently, as these old Bull Connor-wannabes quit the scene, America will reach the promised land. Of course, assumptions like that ignore the fact that Barack Obama's election confirms America's historic commitment to equality of opportunity. Moreover the Pew survey above, in particular, shows only minimal support for that contention.
But make sure you read Ta-Nehisi's essay at Slate, "Playing the Racist Card." He's talking about Geraldine Ferraro as the most recent example of that "Implicit to the racist card is the idea that no racists actually live among us." Or, for one to deny that they're racist, is itself racist:
The bar for racism has been raised so high that one need be a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party to qualify. Had John McCain said that Hillary Clinton was only competitive in the presidential race because she was a woman, there'd be no dispute over whether the comment was sexist. And yet when the equivalent is said about a black person, it's not only not racist, but any criticism of the statement is interpreted as an act of character assassination. "If anybody is going to apologize," Ferraro
told MSNBC, "they should apologize to me for calling me a racist."
In some measure, the narrowing of racism is an unfortunate relic of the civil rights movement, when activists got mileage out of dehumanizing racists and portraying them as ultra-violent Southern troglodytes. Whites may have been horrified by the fire hoses and police dogs turned on children, but they could rest easy knowing that neither they nor anyone they'd ever met would do such a thing. But most racism—indeed, the worst racism—is quaint and banal. There's nothing sensationalistic about redlining or job discrimination. No archival newsreel can capture what it means to be viewed as a person who, minus the beneficence of well-meaning whites, simply can't compete.
The "bar for racism"? That's an interesting concept, and there's no room at a blog post to delve into all the other hypotheses offered by Ta-Nehisi (what is this "quaint and banal" racism, for example).
No, what's really key here is Ta-Nahisi's dejection at the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You see, with the passage of that landmark legislation, the country made its historic commentment to equal treatmentn under the law. That, along with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, and decades of progressive Supreme Court rulings dating back to Brown in 1954, have helped this nation achieve the full measure of it's promise. Thus for Ta-Nahisi to lament the narrowing of racism as an "unfortunate relic of the civil rights movement" is a sad commentary on racial victimology. Think about that: We know today that Jim Crow racism has been repudiated and marginalized as the sentiments of a reprehensible fringe; and Ta-Nehisi's upset about it? For him, it's thus only a short step from that position to finding in every insenstive or stupid remark - like Councilman Frago's - some reprise of the post-bellum horror of white supremacy.
It's too bad, but that's where the radical left is nowadays. And don't forget that it's probably the biggest double-standard in America today. Recall that James von Brunn, the alleged Holocaust Memorial shooter, was a registered Democrat from Maryland. And just this last week, when California's Barbara Boxer, a top national Democratic official, was upbraided for plantation-style condescension towards Harry Alford during Senate testimony, the hard-left netroots media establishment remained silent. See Newsbusters, "On NAACP's 100th Anniversary Media Ignore Boxer's Racist Treatment of Black Chamber CEO."
Of course, Ta-Nehisi totally ignored Baraba Boxer's meltdown. But he's all over Patrick Buchanan's recent comments at MSNBC (here, here, and here, for example).
Go figure?
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(Addendum: See also, "The GOP's Young Hatemonger," where author John Avlon finds one more odd example to tar virtually the entire Republican establishment as racist. It's mostly baloney, of course. But until conservatives are willing to make a more concerted effort to repudiated Democratic racism AND Democratic race-baiting, the right will concede the field on civil rights to those less committed to racial equality than the partisan heirs to Abraham Lincoln.
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Well done. 
