The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That

Posted on | August 25, 2013 | 90 Comments

A troll showed up in the comments of the previous post about Brian Beutler to say that the reason I didn’t do a full fisking is that I “have no argument more advanced than ‘Nuh-uh!'”

OK, fine then — we’ll do it from start to finish:

The right’s black crime obsession
Conservative media’s total fixation on black-on-black
and black-on-white crime isn’t going to end. Here’s why

(We may derive the intent from the headline: “The right” is conflated with “Conservative media,” because everyone who votes Republican does so because Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have told them to. This is therefore the umpteenth journalistic reiteration of the Media Matters daily mantra about the illegitimacy of conservative media.)

BY BRIAN BEUTLER

(Prepare for deliberate dishonesty.)

There are a few black people up to no good in this country and Fox News is on it! So is Drudge Report. Vigilantly on the lookout, 24 hours a day, for stories about black youths behaving badly.

(Didn’t I warn you? Beutler starts lying right off the bat, assuming a liberal readership who never actually watch Fox News and who are too lazy even to bother checking the Drudge Report.)

This isn’t a particularly new phenomenon, but it’s intensified noticeably in the past year for at least two reasons. Conservatives, particularly white conservatives, feel a burning urgency to find a racial counterweight to the aftermath of Trayvon Martin’s shooting (including President Obama’s public comments about the incident), a logical response to the argument that things like background checks and an assault weapons ban are appropriate ways to reduce the likelihood of another Sandy Hook-style massacre, and anecdotal justifications for indiscriminate policing of dangerous neighborhoods.

(This has “intensified noticeably in the past year,” which means since August 2012. Is it true that “white conservatives” actually do feel the “burning urgency” Beutler attributes to them? Or is this just another tendentious assertion he pulled out of his ass? Certainly I feel no such urgency, but maybe someone else does.)

But these are hopeless pursuits. The incidents they draw attention to fail by definition to underscore the things they believe. They all require projecting motives or details or both into tragic events, to create false dichotomies between shootings perpetrated by whites and blacks. They have the unhealthy effect of creating dueling tallies of white-on-black and black-on-white crime. And ironically they all tend to underscore the argument that more “stand your ground” laws and more racial profiling are off-point responses to these incidents.

(Do you see how this is going to go? Brian Beutler asserts that conservatives hold certain beliefs, and then asserts that facts don’t support those beliefs. And notice Brian Beutler says conservatives are “projecting motives,” which Brian Beutler never does!)

The latest conservative cri de coeur is over the tragic shooting death of Chris Lane, a 22-year-old Australian attending East Central University in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship. Two teen boys spotted Lane on a jog last week, trailed him in a car, and allegedly shot him fatally in the back (a third teen reportedly served as their driver). One of the suspects said the boys committed the murder out of boredom.

(This is merely the “latest” such incident — i.e., in which conservatives are alleged to have done what Brian Beutler says they do — but what was the one before Chris Lane? I don’t remember it, but maybe Brian Beutler could, if he chose, rattle off a long list of incidents like this which, so he says, “conservative media” have hyped for the reasons that he says they’re hyping such incidents. He doesn’t actually provide a list, however, so readers are supposed to take Brian Beutler’s word that this is actually a phenomenon.)

Word of the shooting spread quickly. And that’s when the right clumsily revealed that its obsession with gun violence reflects an obsession with racial score settling rather than with averting further tragedies. The conservative media, including Fox News, repeated the claim that the Oklahoma suspects were all black. But this turned out to be a toxic mix of racial bias and wishful thinking. You almost wonder whether the people whose ulterior motives led them into error like this actually lamented the fact that one of the suspects happened to be white. It would be so much more convenient if that weren’t the case.

(When did Fox News, or anyone else, do what Brian Beutler says they did, claiming that the “suspects were all black”? I mean, maybe they did — I haven’t paid any attention to this story — although I don’t see Beutler linking to a source, or quoting anyone. But once again, Beutler assumes a liberal readership that never watches Fox News, so he could say anything about the network’s programming and his ignorant readers would have no choice but to accept his assertions.)

But let’s pretend for a minute that the suspects had all fit the stereotype the hosts at Fox and Friends wanted. Then the idea is that Chris Lane’s death should somehow offset Trayvon Martin’s, or that the people who sought to turn George Zimmerman’s actions into a national referendum on “stand your ground” laws are somehow hypocritical for having little to say when the races of the culprits and innocent victims are reversed. For reactionary Obama foes like former Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., the obvious question is, “Whom will POTUS identify w/this time?”

(The link to the Tweet by Allen West is THE ONLY LINK IN THIS ENTIRE COLUMN. Isn’t Salon.com, y’know, one of those Internet kind of things, where political bloggers routinely link to their sources, so as not to give the appearance that they’re just pulling stuff out of their ass or, as some call it, “doing a Beutler”?)

I’ll give West, et al., this: If you ignore motive, circumstance, history and (likely ) outcome, then liberals, particularly black liberals, sure seem craven. By that standard, though, Jean Valjean and John, King of England are moral equals — just a couple of guy s with similar names taking other people’s property.

(Does that paragraph mean anything? Anything at all?)

So let’s review: George Zimmerman wouldn’t have shot Trayvon Martin if he hadn’t been profiling by race. And even if he had been, the shooting feasibly wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been legally allowed to carry a handgun and didn’t think he was empowered by law to take matters into his own hands. The monstrous killing of Chris Lane has no such back story. The killers apparently had no motive whatsoever, were armed illegally, and certainly weren’t trailing Lane because they believed, based on his race, that he might be a criminal. They are, however, likely to face serious prison time for their crimes. Zimmerman walked.

(And here, evidently too stoned to realize it, Beutler actually proves a point — a conservative point — about crime: People get shot to death all the time, for all kinds of reasons, or for no reason at all, and no policy advocated by liberals is going to prevent this from happening. Zimmerman shooting Trayvon? You can call that “racial profiling” or you can call it a tragic misunderstanding, but exactly how do you propose to prevent it from happening? “Zimmerman walked” because he had a claim of self-defense sufficiently plausible to constitute “reasonable doubt.” Also, notice that, while admitting that the teenagers in the Chris Lane shooting were illegally armed, Brian Beutler assumes that if Zimmerman “hadn’t been legally allowed to carry a handgun,” Zimmerman would not have also illegally armed himself. Why assume that? And what about Trayvon’s “whoop-ass” beating of Zimmerman, which Zimmerman said he thought might end in his own death? Would Brian Beutler have been happy to have Trayvon beat Zimmerman to death?)

Put that all together, and it turns out these stories aren’t counter-parallel at all. And more to the point, the events don’t even anecdotally augur for policies the right supports. The kids in Oklahoma weren’t “standing their ground,” and a “stand your ground” law wouldn’t have saved Chris Lane. Neither would a stop-and-frisk regime — the killers were trailing him in a car. By contrast, a “stand your ground” environment and a stop-and-frisk mentality were instrumental in Trayvon Martin’s death. Take either away , and there’s a good chance he’d be alive today. Martin in fact personified the statistical folly of stop-and-frisk. If Zimmerman had yielded to real police, they would have, in absence of any suspicious behavior, stopped Martin, frisked him and found only the skittles and iced tea that made his death that much more tragically poignant.

(Again, it is only Brian Beutler’s assertion that the Chris Lane murder is being reported because “conservative media” believe the story supports a policy argument. My own guess is that after the incessant 24/7 media drumbeat about the Zimmerman trial, which liberals claimed was an event fraught with political significance, some “conservative media” basically decided, “Hey, we’re going to stop downplaying or ignoring black-on-white crime, just to make a point.” But that’s merely my guess. Unlike Brian Beutler, I don’t possess any clairvoyant mind-reading powers that enable me to know why Fox News producers or Matt Drudge do what they do.)

You could twist that into a claim that stop-and-frisk might have saved Martin’s life. But that gets the onus backward. Proponents of profiling policies need to do better than argue we have to violate the civil rights of minorities in order to protect them from hair-triggered vigilantes.

(The “stop-and-frisk” thing is strictly an issue in New York, because of an NYPD policy that was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge. It has nothing to do with Oklahoma and even less to do with Sanford, Florida. Why Brian Beutler keeps bringing it up, I don’t know. Has the “stop-and-frisk” issue has been discussed by anyone at Fox News in the context of the Chris Lane murder? If it has, then why doesn’t he quote that discussion? In general, why are there no links or quotes in this column? Why can’t Brian Beutler be bothered to provide actual evidence of the phenomenon he presumes to critique? Why do liberals think it’s acceptable to assert controversial claims that they don’t bother to prove? How many bong-hits does Brian Beutler usually do before writing his columns? Seven. That’s  now an established fact — because I just asserted it, see?)

What might well have stopped both killings, though, is making it harder for people, legally or illegally, to come into possession of handguns. That’s a conversation the right is less obsessed with.

(Again with the assertion: People who Brian Beutler doesn’t like are “obsessed,” or they ” feel a burning urgency,” or have an “obsession with gun violence” and “an obsession with racial score settling,” or are motivated by “racial bias and wishful thinking.” Over and over again — pausing only to take another bong hit — Beutler attributes irrational motives to antagonists for doing what he asserts they are doing, although he merely asserts this without providing any actual evidence of it. There are no quotes from Fox News broadcasts in Brian Beutler’s column, no links to transcripts. It’s just a straight-up rant that was written only because Brian Beutler is supposed to write a certain number of columns per week for Salon and, because he never does any reporting or, for that matter, much of anything that could be called “research,” he just sat down, toked up a few bowls of sinsemilla and let it rip, right off the top of his head.)

Brian Beutler is Salon’s political writer. Email him at bbeutler@salon.com and follow him on Twitter at @brianbeutler.

(Or you could also block him on Twitter. Or say rude things about him on Twitter. Certainly there’s no reason to follow him, unless you want him to hook you up with some weed.)

Copyright © 2011 Salon.com. All rights reserved.

Fuck you. Fair use. Sue me, you bastards, I double-dog dare you.

 

Category: Media Bias

Comments

90 Responses to “The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That”

  1. AmPowerBlog
    August 25th, 2013 @ 2:00 pm

    Ouch! The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That http://t.co/kkMzJ7ZiRh via @RSMcCain

  2. Steve Skubinna
    August 25th, 2013 @ 2:22 pm

    They hate truth because it won’t adjust itself to fit their prejudices.

  3. elaine
    August 25th, 2013 @ 2:30 pm

    Stacy: you missed the most obvious fallacy in Beutler’s article (don’t know if I just misspelled his name and don’t care enough to check):

    Suspect in Chris Lane’s murder James Edwards (the youngest of the three) not only was “dancing and joking” when arrested, but it was revealed he had a Facebook and Twitter feed full of anti-white messages. Among them, how much he hated whites and how many “woods” he’d dropped since the Trayvon verdict.

    By comparison, George Zimmerman was not only NOT a racist as the media loved to portray him as being, but he actually spent a lot of time helping underprivileged minorities.

    So one murderer seems motivated by racial hate and the other not — but on both accounts the MSM and Mr. What’s-his-name had to distort the truth to fit their narrative. And now that there are several more cases which have broken in the past week of black on white violence or advocacy of same– the murder of the WWII vet; the attack on a hot dog vendor in St. Louis; murder of a Memphis man deemed robbery, even though nothing was stolen (and another case where a Facebook page for one of the perps showed a lot of hate for white people); AND the DHS employee running a race war website — well the leftist narrative is at risk of being overwhelmed by the truth.

    This isn’t about keeping some sort of score — this is about smashing the leftist messaging that blacks are never guilty of hate crimes while “whites” (or “white hispanics”) always are.

    If you’re going to fisk someone, take them down, sir.

  4. AmPowerBlog
    August 25th, 2013 @ 2:52 pm

    RT @rsmccain The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That http://t.co/jJn0TzxDiW … #tcot

  5. GottaQHFilly
    August 25th, 2013 @ 2:54 pm

    The motive is clear as day. They hate whites and are on the hunt to beat, maim, rape and kill every chance they get. I say we return the exact sentiments.

  6. GottaQHFilly
    August 25th, 2013 @ 2:58 pm

    Really? You have your thong in a twist because a journalist is following through on a case the propaganda arms of the ovomit regime won’t even report? Your “points?” Totally invalid and worthless. I hate liberals. ALL LIBERALS.

  7. rsmccain
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:03 pm

    RT @AmPowerBlog: RT @rsmccain The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That http://t.co/jJn0TzxDiW … #tcot

  8. killpundit
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:21 pm

    The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That http://t.co/TeZKrDleFn via @rsmccain

  9. La Pucelle
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:26 pm

    That seems to have been a recurring theme with just about every leftist online for the past month. It’s a consequence of the constant enabling that produces this Special Snowflake disease that afflicts just about every leftist mind out there.*

    *-To wit, it’s not leftism itself than makes them this way. (in spite of it being a stew of Really Bad Ideas that were proven wrong long ago) Rather, the libertine lifestyle of leftism tends to draw a predictable amount of insane degenerates who go out and prove that they do need boundaries, rules, and shame culture to keep them from going out and molesting children.

  10. La Pucelle
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:30 pm

    Good job. I know it was painful reading that goldbrick’s incoherent verbal Montezuma’s Revenge, your commentary made it somewhat tolerable.

  11. japan_johnny
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:30 pm

    RT @AmPowerBlog: RT @rsmccain The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That http://t.co/jJn0TzxDiW … #tcot

  12. Finrod Felagund
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:36 pm

    Heck, I don’t even like watching the Die Hard movies on edited television. I avoided seeing Die Hard 4 in the theater because of the PG-13 rating.

  13. Dianna Deeley
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:43 pm

    Though you want “impute” rather than “impugn”.

  14. Dianna Deeley
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:49 pm

    Politely and clearly written. It does not matter that I believe you miss the point RSM has been making about the Kaitlyn Hunt matter.

  15. DaveO
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:52 pm

    This effort to offend blacks stems from the need to get blacks angry enough to get out and vote in off-year elections – especially Virginia.
    Democrats need McAuliffe to win because he will nuke Virginia’s economy, making the state as completely dependent of the federal government as Maryland is. Once a voter is monetarily dependent on the Dems, that voter will vote Dem regardless of the issue and previously-held beliefs.
    Virginia has been involved in poaching corporations away from permanent-blue states, such as companies in the firearms industry.
    McAuliffe will also keep law enforcement away from voting stations. Hillary psychologically requires not only a win, but a Triumphalist win and McAuliffe will guarantee it.
    But first, blacks need to have a reason to vote, and the BS about conservatism’s allegedly excessive concern with racially-motivated crime is like a cattle-prod.

  16. Dianna Deeley
    August 25th, 2013 @ 3:59 pm

    Just one objection: the people the Democrats need to motivate do not read Salon.

  17. keyboard jockey
    August 25th, 2013 @ 4:58 pm

    http://sweetness-light.com/archive/dhs-employees-website-promotes-killing-whites

    How many elephant’s in the room – would the left like us to treat like unrelated outliers? They should give us a ball park figure, because we could easily be “stacking this wood” till the next election cycle.

  18. Bob Belvedere
    August 25th, 2013 @ 4:59 pm

    Well, if his weed his laced with something along the lines of PCP…

  19. Bob Belvedere
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:00 pm

    Part of this loser’s problem may just be that they’re are very many inches there, IYKWIMAITYD.

  20. Bob Belvedere
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:01 pm

    Ahhhh….the good old days – I think.

  21. SwiperTheFox
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:04 pm

    Don’t bite your tongue, that’s what doublemint gum is for!

    >double the pleasure
    >double the fun

    /only half-joking

  22. Bob Belvedere
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:08 pm

    I wouldn’t blame Stacy because it is only recently that he has been swearing more here and on Twitter. I find myself doing it too, by the way.

    I think it’s because, after five years of Socialism and Treason Within Unbound, all true Americans are fully fed-up with the situation.

  23. Bob Belvedere
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:11 pm

    …won’t adjust to fit their precious Ideology. Such is the way of all Ideologues.

  24. Bob Belvedere
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:14 pm

    Damn well put.

  25. Paratisi
    August 25th, 2013 @ 6:10 pm

    Slapping Down An Idiot, or 20: The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That http://t.co/R2ZmSrROnJ

  26. DaveO
    August 25th, 2013 @ 6:52 pm

    Ms. D,
    Agree, but the usual process is: 1) Outrageous written opinion; 2) invite to repeat the outrage on TV; and 3) Toure’ and Rev_Al give the Black Supremacist blessing.
    The people who read Salon pass by blacks on the Metro, and nervously avoid the darker complexioned citizens in each uncontrolled situations.

  27. rmnixondeceased
    August 25th, 2013 @ 7:34 pm

    Touché

  28. Junior Samples
    August 25th, 2013 @ 7:50 pm

    The problem has been the focus on irrelevant arguments – some of which are actually unsupported by the evidence.

    1. ‘George Zimmerman (GZ) racially profiled Trayvon Martin (TM)’ There is no evidence of this.

    2. ‘GZ disobeyed an order by the police’ * The civilian dispatcher, Sean Noffke, testified that he did not give GZ an order and, in fact, he, like his fellow dispatchers, are trained not make comments that sound like commands. * Noffke also testified under cross that, as a result of his asking GZ which way TM was going, GZ could have reasonably interpreted this as being asked to follow Martin. * It is also not a crime in Florida to disregard a comment made by a civilian dispatcher.

    3. ‘GZ got out of his car’ Not a crime on public property and not negligent either.

    4. ‘GZ followed TM’ Again, anyone can follow anyone on a public street unless the followee has obtained a restraining order against the follower and even there, the RS only places time, place, and manner restrictions on the person enjoined.

    5. ‘GZ wasn’t really injured’ * Under Florida’s self-defense laws, one doesn’t have to be injured AT ALL to use deadly force * No one is required to refrain from defending himself while another is engaged in or attempting to commit a felony.

    6. ‘TM is dead through no fault of his own’ * If you believe that TM assaulted GZ, then he IS dead as a result of his own actions.

    7. ‘GZ could have left’ * Under Florida law, there is not a duty to withdraw rather than use deadly force * TM was straddling GZ so how the latter was supposed to leave the scene is unanswered.

    8. ‘GZ was armed and TM wasn’t’ * One’s fists can be considered weapons and can result in severe bodily harm or death. * GZ was legally carrying a weapon * There is no requirement under the law that the same weapon be used by the assailant * A homeowner can kill an intruder whether or not he has been threatened * Those that attack cannot feign surprise if they are met with superior firepower.

    9. ‘Stand Your Ground!’ * SYG is NOT at issue in this trial. * The defense is a classic self-defense case.

    10. ‘Black men NEVER get to use SYG!’ * Wrong http://tinyurl.com/nboht35

    11. ‘GZ is a man and TM was a boy!’ * As if ‘boys’ don’t commit murder, rape, and assault everyday in this country.

  29. Bubba Chuck
    August 25th, 2013 @ 9:38 pm

    Hi there. Look, I’m touched that you apparently felt the need to prove something or another by “fisking” Beutler’s article for my benefit, but, again, there’s a small problem: Everything you accuse him of doing you do right back. In other words, at no point do you actually say “Beutler is wrong on this point, here’s why, and here’s supporting evidence for it.” You counter his assertions with nothing more than assertions of your own, then beat your chest about how you totally pwned that noob.

    But, whatever. Keep on doing whatever it is you do.

    Oh, and one more thing: Here’s a link to Fox News — Fox and Friends, specifically — erroneously saying that all three suspects were black. Took me about five seconds to find it.

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/fox-and-friends-daily-caller-falsely-report-3-black-teens-arrested-in-chris-lane-murder/

  30. One Voice
    August 25th, 2013 @ 10:44 pm

    I thought the Lane murder got attention because it was an international incident! An Austraian student was gunned down in America by a group of wannabe gang bangers for no other reason than they planned to “Drop 2 in 2.” for a baby boy blue bandana. The much loved and respected, hardworking Australian student was killed by ferel vermin while he was going to school here in America.

    Folks, this don’t have nuthin to do with race. It’s about loving life or loving death. It’s probably also about the regulations, laws and financial policies that prevent young people from having even a chance of a summer or part time job that could give them some sense of hope in self determination of their future, but that’s another rant.
    One nation’s outrage,
    One nation’s shame.

    While I’m on the subject of national shame, WHY doe it always seem to be an Okie lately??!?

  31. Liberals celebrate idiocy, hail noted moron Brian Beutler | The Daley Gator
    August 26th, 2013 @ 1:17 am

    […] is more from The Other McCain I am giving you almost the entire fisking McCain does on Bong Boy Beutler because, well it is dead […]

  32. rmnixondeceased
    August 26th, 2013 @ 6:08 am

    But large cash donors do (white guilt).

  33. RMNixonDeceased
    August 26th, 2013 @ 6:13 am

    “…won’t adjust to fit their precious Ideology. Such is the way of all Ideologues.” — Bob Belvedere http://t.co/tmxQqWQems

  34. rmnixondeceased
    August 26th, 2013 @ 6:20 am

    Either way, a sore head the next morning …

  35. Quartermaster
    August 26th, 2013 @ 9:00 am

    Someone made the comment that the supposedly white kid’s father is black. I can’t remember where I read that, but if true, then by the lights of our enlightened leftards, he is black making all three black.

  36. Quartermaster
    August 26th, 2013 @ 9:01 am

    Race is only a cover.

  37. gjsmith_62
    August 26th, 2013 @ 11:47 pm

    “They all require projecting motives or details or both into tragic events, to create false dichotomies between” being President and presidential.

    FIFY. Maybe if Obama didn’t have a “burning urgency” to insert himself into his anus every time any perceived injustice to blacks occurred, Obama might have been presidential.

    Instead, he’s just a pathetic excuse for a community organizer.

  38. Finrod Felagund
    August 27th, 2013 @ 1:09 am

    Would make all three of them at least as black as Obama.

  39. Hmm. @JamesTaranto Mildly Disagrees With @AnnAlthouse? Let Me Try That. : The Other McCain
    August 29th, 2013 @ 5:04 pm

    […] Brian Beutler’s shoddy assertion that he knows the Secret Motives of those who have reported a… — and these are, of course, evil racist right-wing motives — mistakes the reaction for the action. That is to say, if there is some kind of backlash going on here, to what is it a backlash, and is it justified? And if Beutler would care to explain why the original action (i.e., relentless wall-to-wall media coverage of the Trayvon Martin case) was justified, he’ll find himself hard-pressed to refute those who argue that a reaction is equally justified, if not more so, by quite similar arguments. This is not an argument about race. It’s an argument about media bias. […]

  40. FMJRA 2.0: Equinoxe : The Other McCain
    August 31st, 2013 @ 4:19 pm

    […] The Fisking of @BrianBeutler: Obsessed Obsessive Obsessions and Stuff Like That […]