The soul of Lawrence O’Donnell: For our money, Michael Lind makes his points rather poorly in this Salon piece, though we think his basic points are strong. Liberal journalists should stop clowning in certain ways, he suggests. We expect to discuss his piece in more detail in the future.
For an example of what Lind might mean, consider Lawrence O’Donnell.
O’Donnell’s performance was slithering, gruesome, all through last evening’s Last Word. But he saved the slimiest part for the very end. Pretending to care about Lara Logan, he handed us rubes this garbage:
O’DONNELL (2/16/11): On Friday, February 11th, the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 Minutes story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration.
It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy. So says a CBS News statement released yesterday. The statement continues, "in the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating, before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel, and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning."
CBS, Lara Logan and her family intend to make no further statement on this. She’s now recovering at home after being treated in an American hospital.
Making a bad situation worse, there have been many reactions to what happened to Lara Logan. The worst from conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel, who brags about her appearances on The O’Reilly Factor.
She wrote, "so sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks and she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled. How fitting that Lara Logan was liberated by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the liberation. Hope you`re enjoying the revolution, Lara."
Joining me now, author and journalist Farai Chideya of PopAndPolitics.com.
Farai, I am a little lost. I am a little bit sickened by what I just had to read. I thought it was hard to be surprised by what can surface on the Internet these days. This is surprising.
This slithering fellow said he was sickened. We think we might know what he means.
Several people have offered soul-shriveling reactions to the assault on Logan. (For Salon’sclick here.) On last night’s Hannity, the rubes were only told about Nir Rosen, a NYU professor who has criticized Logan “from the left,” as a war-monger. (In the wake of his comments, Rosen has resigned from his NYU post.) O’Donnell played the same tribal game; he of course mentioned only Schlussel, a relatively insignificant low-life who has long been one of the most repulsive voices on the right. report on these comments,
Please note the game this fellow played, a game which involved Bill O’Reilly.
From what this fiery liberal said, a viewer might have gotten the idea that Schlussel appears on O’Reilly’s program—although you’ll note that O’Donnell didn’t actually say that she does. This of course helps us liberal rubes get all fired up at the very bad people found in the other tribe. For ourselves, we couldn’t remember seeing Schlussel on any Fox program in recent years. So we entered her name in the Nexis archives. This is what we found:
First, we searched on “O’Reilly and Schlussel.” If the Nexis archives can be trusted, Schlussel last appeared on O’Reilly’s program in June 2002—almost nine years ago.
(According to Nexis, this was her second appearance on the Factor—her second and her last.) We then searched on “Fox News and Schlussel.” It seems her last appearance on any prime-time Fox program occurred in 2003 (Hannity & Colmes).
Schlussel’s comments were appalling, as her comments typically are. She is a very minor player, but she is always repulsive. But O’Donnell wanted to use the assault on Logan for his narrow tribal purposes. Whatever his flaws, and they are many, Bill O’Reilly has nothing to do with the sickening comments about Lara Logan. But the corporate suits at MSNBC want you to be always pleased.
Olbermann used to play these phony O’Reilly-related games too, though we certainly can’t recall a time when he did so in such a sickening context.
Logan was the victim of a sickening crime. And then, in slithered Lawrence O’Donnell, using it for his advantage. Reworking O’Donnell’s heartfelt language, we thought it was hard to be surprised by what can surface on cable these days. But then, up stepped O’Donnell.
Again, please note the slick way he didn’t say that Schlussel appears on O’Reilly’s program. We’re not sure when we’ve seen a person so vile on TV.
