The latest was Fox News Analyst Liz Trotta (pictured), and Senator Hillary Clinton was just before her by three days. Then we had Arkansas Governor Mike Hucabee and also White Supremacist and friend to Fox News' Sean Hannity Hal Turner.
What do all of these people have in common? Well, all are over 50 years old, either in the mainstream media or have access to the mainstream media, are White, and all have suggested that Senator Barack Obama be harmed or threatened in some way.
It doesn't matter if it's said in a suggestive way, as Senator Clinton did, or directly as Turner did. The main question is why are they doing this, and also why is it that a frightening portion of people in the mainstream media -- again to date all White -- are giving these comments a pass.
(As a momentary aside, it's wrong regardless of color, but the pattern to date is an alarming one.)
Let's start with Senator Clinton's now famous statement, which you can read here. Regardless of your interpretation, she said what she said and one has to ask why in hell Clinton would even have the possibility of a June assassination in her mind.
Think about it.
Clinton said that it was not a good idea to want her to quit the race and gave several historical reasons why, including mentioning that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Well, how the hell is one to think anything other than that she had Senator Obama -- the only other person remaining in the Presidential Race -- in mind?
In my view Senator Clinton has a major problem with a moral compass that she turns off when the issue isn't apparently a directly moral one. Thus, she can say "it takes a President" in a very sloppy response to Fox News' Marshall Holman's question regarding Martin Luther King's legacy. This really terrible person filling in for Ronn Owens on his KGO Morning Show was not able or willing to wrap is mind around the fact that Clinton's "policy first" perspective was wrongheaded and so hung up on me on the call-in show this morning.
A very small action of an obviously very small person. I was happy to learn this so quickly.
And thus it -- since that person's part of the mainstream media and White and apparently at, near, or over 50 years old -- brings me back to my main concern: that these terrible comments aimed against Senator Obama are seemingly OK with the John Rothman's of the World.
What I was saying to him got on the air -- Senator Clinton has a moral compass problem. In other words, Clinton's so busy thinking about what she thinks (and Rothman thinks) is the right answer, but in reality is one possible answer and one without a moral adjustment where you consider how those who revere Dr. King (who was killed) would feel -- not the right one.
I didn't waste time calling Rothman back because to do so would have been, well, a waste of time. I've learned to ignore people like that and did so a long time ago.
But what's bothersome is that people like him and Trotta have jobs at KGO and Fox News. I'd love to see them fired and replaced with voices of color and young White voices who represent diverse communities.
I think a big part of the news media's problem goes back to the lack of newsroom diversity; it's all one kind of voice most of the time. This is certainly true for KGO, which is why I seldom tune in, if ever. I used to do so, but over the years I've observed Ronn Owens reflecting a dated viewpoint and the last straw was Owens guest, a totally stupid and psychotically racist man named Burt Prelutsky, who send email after sicko email expressing the desire to debate me online -- rather than in person.
(Owens and Burt are in the photo -- the one with the guys with the shirts I wouldn't wear!)
People like Burt are so sick, debating them in person is easy. I know his weakness and it stems from his own hatred of people of color and the fact that he sees himself as smarter than someone like me because I'm Black (Have doubts? You should hear that cracker!) -- his first error which comes from a personal God complex. He;s not the judge but because he thinks he's the judge makes him so fun to toy with -- in person. His emails I don't want at all. I'll leave it at that. He's a nut and Ronn was not only nuts for giving him a platform, but for sending him to me online and not setting it up so I could embarass Burt on Ronn's show. Ronn thought it was funny; I wasn't laughing but considered calling the cops at one point.
I'm serious.
It's people like those that are apologists for Senator's Clinton's RFK comments. Geez.
And if not the KGO myopics, then we have people like Liz Trotta, who are so mentally stuck in the "us" versus "them" mentality that talking about bring harm to Senator Obama is within the realm of possibility. Heck, Trotta did it.
But the real person who's just beyond the pale is Hal Turner (pictured with the cartoon-like comment(, the White Supremacist who's rants calling for Obama's assassination were so threatening the FBI and Secret Service were contacted. Sean Hannity's a friend of Turner and even had him on his show as recently as 2005.
To me the only remedy is the wholesale sacking of people like these and by others within their peer group who have enough internal strength to say "Look, that's enough. You're finished." Only then will this crap stop and we can move on toward achieving a more healthy American Society.
Right now, it's pretty fucked up.
