Category: Media

Kanye West Goes Anti-Semitic

I’ve always been really uncomfortable with the Right’s embrace of Kanye West.  While others just saw Kanye calling out Democrats for taking black voters for granted (and they do), I remembered Kanye was being the notoriously erratic and eccentric egomaniac who accused Bush of deliberately flooding New Orleans during Katrina.  Everything about Kanye’s public comments suggested that he struggled with paranoia and, traditionally, people who have a paranoid and conspiracy-centered worldviews always seem to eventually reveal themselves to be anti-Semitic.

Which is what Kanye appears to have done.

I know that some people will be tempted to play that “what about” game and say why so many celebrities on the left get a free ride when it  comes to anti-Semitism.  Nick Cannon repeated a bunch of Farrakhan talking points (including the exact same “I can’t be anti-Semitic because blacks are the actual Semites” argument that West made) and, after giving an insincere apology, was given his own talk show and continues to host The Masked Singer.

(The Masked Singer has become an nexus of hypocrisy because not only is Cannon hosting but two of the judges staged a walkout over Rudy Guiliani being one of the singers but they haven’t had any problem doing show-after-show with one of the biggest anti-Vaxxers in the country.)

Obviously, I agree that Nick Cannon and many others (including a few members of Congress) have not been held to the same standard by which Kanye West will be held.  But that doesn’t mean that the standard should be abandoned.

Instead of engaging in “what aboutism,” we need to have a long conversation about how anti-Semitism has become mainstreamed in recent years.  But I don’t think many people are ready to honestly confront that subject.

Lemon To Mornings

CNN canceling Don Lemon’s nightly show and then assigning him to be one of three co-hosts of a morning shows seems like a ploy to get him to voluntarily leave the network, if not soon than at least whenever his current contract expires.

I suppose many will hold this up as being another example of CNN turning to the right.  The truth is that if Don Lemon had been getting the ratings, he’d still have his show.  CNN’s mistake was that by leaning so hard into the Resistance, they didn’t leave themselves anywhere to go once Trump left office.  People weren’t watching the network because they were necessarily charmed by Don Lemon, Brian Stelter, or Chris Cuomo.  They were watching to get their daily hit of anger at Trump.  Once Trump became less relevant, so did CNN.

Zelenskyy and the Oscars

I really hope that Zelenskyy does not appear on the Oscars tonight.  Right now, Zelenskyy is winning the hearts of people across the world.  I think appearing on the Oscars, as is rumored might happen, would only serve to cheapen him and his struggle.  It’ll make him look like just another celebrity, instead of being a man fighting to protect his country from a tyrant.

Despite all of the attention that Ukraine and Zelenskyy have received over the past month, I think some people still fail to understand that this is a serious struggle and a serious war and that, given the way Putin deals with his enemies, Zelenskyy is not only fighting to save Ukraine but also his own life.  Appearing on the Oscars and doing a bit with Amy Schumer will only distract from the seriousness of what’s actually happening in Ukraine right now.

The Most Tone Deaf Thing You’ll See Today

Today, in tone deafness:

Definitely “Nobody said this would be fun” is a perfect strategy for the midterms and I encourage Democrats everywhere to run with it.

It Couldn’t Happen To A Nicer Group Of People

From The New York Post:

Chris Cuomo demands $125M from CNN, calls his firing ‘epitome of hypocrisy’

As a general rule, it’s never a good thing to take enjoyment out of the misfortune of others but that’s a rule that I’m willing to suspend when it comes to the Cuomos and the people who enabled them at CNN.  The only reason that Chris Cuomo had a job was because of who is brother was.  Now that he’s lost that job and Andrew isn’t really in a position to get him a new one, Chris seems to be determined to burn the place down on his way out.

Trying to protect Andrew Cuomo is turning out to have been a costly decision.

Olbermann Stays On The Balcony For Now

From the New York Post:

MSNBC almost brought back Keith Olbermann to replace Rachel Maddow: report

This story really isn’t as surprising as it may seem like it should be.  There’s a long line of networks who have insisted on hiring and occasionally rehiring Keith Olbermann, despite the fact that apparently no one can stand to work with him and his shows always seem to end in disaster.  I think, in MSNBC’s case, a lot of the interest in Olbermann was connected to nostalgia for the Bush years, which was the last time that Olbermann was really relevant as a commentator.

Hearing that Rachel Maddow, who really does owe much of her career to Olbermann’s early advocacy for her, personally vetoed Olbermann as a replacement is just the icing on the cake.  Maddow supported the promotions of both Chris Hayes and Joy-Ann Reid, after all.

Olbermann is probably the epitome of the person who was really good at one thing — talking about sports — but who became better known for doing something that he was really not suited for.  Olbermann’s anti-Bush diatribes made him a favorite with the Left during the first decade of the 21st Century but they also left him in limbo once Bush was no longer in office.  Once Trump entered the White House, there were so many commentators doing Olbermann’s shtick that Olbermann himself got lost in the noise.

As the NY Post story notes, Olbermann is now best known for videos featuring him ranting on his Manhattan balcony.  He’ll always have that.

The 24 Hour Rule

Someone drove a red SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin earlier today.  There’s a lot of speculation out there about who was driving the SUV and what their motives may have been.  In the wake of the Rittenhouse verdict, many people are being very quick to label this a terrorist attack.

I’m forcing myself not to speculate.  When I first heard the news, I did jump to a conclusion but I’m not going to post it.  One of the huge problem that we have in this country is that too many people jump to conclusions before they have all of the information.  We’re so quick to blame the other side that we forget that people are hurting right now and that people need help.  Being attacked by someone with no politics is just as dangerous as being attacked by an ideological zealot.

The 24 hour rule is a good one to observe.  Whatever or whoever you may think is responsible for what’s happened, keep it to yourself for 24 hours.  For now, just keep the victims in your thoughts and hope for the best.

Clutching Pearls

The amount of pearl-clutching over the Let’s Go Brandon chant is hilarious.  Has it occurred to any of the people currently panicking over its popularity that every time they demand that people not say it, it’s just going to make people want to say it more?  Even more importantly, you can’t spend years running fawning profiles of anyone who has says negative about one President and then act like an outraged virtue signaler when the other side does the same thing to your President.

But they’ll continue to make a big deal about it and try to cast it as something sinister because to do otherwise would mean admitting that a lot of people don’t like Joe Biden right now.