JABbering Stooge

Randi Rhodes Suspended After Calling Hillary ‘Big F***ing Whore’

While no one listens to Randi Rhodes, her unhinged rant about Sen. Hitlery XXXlintoon and Geraldine Ferraro prove the point we’ve been making all along: only “libruls” are full of hate, and thus undeserving of basic human consideration! No backs, double tax!!!

Sadly, wingnut bloggers weren’t the only ones getting in on the game of “Gotcha!” with the Air America host serving as Wingnut Piñata-of-the-Day™. The professional bloviators on AM Hate Radio™ also piled on.

Here was that fatuous fathead Neal Boortz’s take on the subject:

AND I’M THE ONE SUPPOSED TO BE FULL OF HATE

When I make these TV appearances — that is, when someone can talk me into actually leaving my nest and trekking of to stare at some camera somewhere — I have one stipulation. I will not appear with Air America host Randi Rhodes.

Several years ago the lovely Ms. Rhodes and I were on some CNN show. I can’t even remember what we were discussing, but suddenly out of the blue clear sky the winsome Ms. Rhodes (who is hot for me, by the way) said that I have called all Muslims “towel heads” “rag heads” on my show [full transcript]. Now this isn’t some innocent lie. This is a dangerous damnable lie. This is the type of lie that can end up getting you killed. This is the type of lie that can get your family hurt. I immediately challenged the sultry Ms. Rhodes to prove here assertion, and that if she could I would donate $5000 to a charity of her choice. Of course, pouty lips never tendered the proof (there was none) and the money remains in my pocket. [WRONG! What was that about “dangerous damnable lies,” Neal? - Ed.]

So .. why bring this up? Well it would seem that the luscious Ms. Rhodes has been suspended from her Air America show for some undetermined length of time. And why would that be? Well, the angelic Ms. Rhodes apparently referred to Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro as “f__king whores” during a publicity appearance for Green 960 KKGN in San Francisco.

Nice talk, Randi! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

And … no. You can’t have some.

Feh. That’s rich, coming from the person who equated Kerry voters with al-Qaeda members. (Okay, if you want to nitpick, Neal, you said that Kerry voters were just as dangerous to America as al-Qaeda. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.) Furthermore, Mr. Boortz, are you really sure that you want to be slinging accusations of hate speech around?

After all, it was not Randi Rhodes who called Rep. Cynthia McKinney a “ghetto slut.” That was you. It was not Randi Rhodes who called Islam “a deadly virus.” That was you. It was not Randi Rhodes who joked about feeding illegal immigrants polonium tacos or having them “self-deport” out of aircraft in mid-flight. That was you. It was not Randi Rhodes who said that Muslims are “sort of like cockroaches.” That was you. It was not Randi Rhodes who characterized the post-Katrina diaspora (consisting mostly of African-Americans) as “just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.” That was you, you racist git.

Like Boor-to-the-tz, Bill O’Reilly — the Lord of the Loofahs — also felt the need to chime in on the Rhodes matter:

Mind you, this is the person who called for a terrorist attack on San Francisco, repeatedly lied about hateful comments by fans on his web site even as he hypocritically attacked Daily Kos, called for Air America staffers to be arrested on spurious charges of treason, fantasized about strangling Media Matters for America employees and demanded the deportation of the people who run Media Matters for America. And that’s not including the borderline racist crap he’s spewed in the last year, either! (See, Sean? I can do lists, too!) But what really buries the needle on the hypocrisy meter is the fact that the man who flings one derogatory name at his ideological opponents every seven seconds has the chutzpah to complain about name calling from Air America hosts.

And speaking of burying the needle on the irony/hypocrisy meter, here’s Sean Hannity bringing on that paragon of civility, Ann “The Best Way To Talk to a Liberal is to Hit Them In the Head With a Baseball Bat” Coulter:

I think its funny that Sean “Asshole!” Hannity was complaining about Rhodes’ “profanity-laden” tirade. I think Hannity needs to brush up on Matthew 7:5 before whining about any words out of a liberal’s mouth in the future. (How pissed was Moran? Not that [Hannity] give[s] a shit.)

And seriously, Sean? Ann Coulter? In the very same segment that the three of you beat up on Alan Colmes and Randi Rhodes (who wasn’t even in studio to defend herself), Coulter engages in Reductio ad Hitlerum vis a vis Sen. Barack Obama. And as for Coulter’s “contributions” to civilized discourse? Well, that could comprise a whole separate list itself.

And they call Randi Rhodes hateful? Feh! Randi’s a piker compared to these Emmy-award winners. They’ve got more hate in their little fingers than Rhodes has in her entire body, yet they get to keep their jobs, the fate of the popular Air America host hangs by the thread holding the Sword of Damocles. Go figure.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s last speech:

MLK’s speech on the Vietnam War:

And here’s some helpful links on this somber milestone — the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

• FBI and MLK Jr: Lessons for Today — Ed Brayton (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• Remembering Dr. King — Jessica Valenti (Feministing)

• Honoring Dr. King - McCain’s sorry record — Pam Spaulding (Pandagon)

• Forty Years — Barbara O’Brien (mahablog)

• ThinkProgress’ coverage of the anniversary of King’s death in its daily “ThinkFast” post

Although we’ve come a long way in the forty years since King was murdered, in many ways, we still have a long way to go. Let’s not lose sight of that fact as we head into the fall election season. This election is as much about trying to realize Dr. King’s dream as it is about keeping the White House out of the hands of Rethuglicans for the next four years.

Unemployment hits 5.1% as employers eliminate 80,000 jobs. Here in Austin, Dell is closing its North Austin factory, and hints that more (grunt-level) job cuts are on the way. Why Michael Dell’s salary isn’t one of the things being cut is a question that the computer giant refuses to answer.

Well, one surge seems to be working, at least. The surge of money from the wallets of the “lucky duckies” to the Ken Lays and Dennis Kozlowskis of the world. It’s almost as if we’re paying taxes not to the American government, but to corporate bigwigs, instead.

Another John Yoo pro-torture memo surfaces. This time he suggests that President Bush is not subject to the Geneva Conventions.

Un-fucking-believable. Why hasn’t this guy been disbarred yet?

Well, I suppose he could always get a job with Wal-Mart’s legal department.

Not to trivialize the contributions of Keith Olbermann and the liberal blogosphere to Wal-Mart’s accidental display of mere humanity, but I did want to point out one element of the Wal-Mart vs. Jim and Debbie Shank travesty that hasn’t been touched upon as much. That element is the fact that, in addition to the bad PR the pressure from Olbermann and the liberal blogs provided, Wal-Mart’s decision to acquiesce to their vestigial sense of decency came after the Supreme Court declined to hear the Shanks’ case, leaving intact the retail giant’s successful lawsuit against the couple. While I would be remiss to suggest that the court case was the primary motive for Wal-Mart’s decision, especially considering that the evidence points elsewhere, I can’t ignore the fact that the case sets up the precedent that it’s okay in the eyes of the law for large companies with legions of well-heeled lawyers to so totally and egregiously ratfuck their employees like that. And it’s hard to believe that such Catbertian considerations didn’t occur to Wal-Mart executives at some point during this incident.

It’s the sort of thing that gives “ambulance-chasing” a whole new meaning.

Moreover, Glenn Beck’s reaction to the case is both reprehensible and revealing. Reprehensible in the sense that he’s actually defending Wal-Mart’s position on this on principle, and that he resorts to blatant lies, misinformation and outright character assassination to do so. Revealing in the sense that it shines a light on just how deeply conservatives hold the “mythical little guy” in contempt.