Topic: CNSNews.com
And to think we actually believed Patrick Goodenough sorta cared about journalism.
The CNSNews.com managing editor proves us wrong in a March 9 commentary purporting to tar liberals with hypocrisy because they've used the word "faggot" just like Ann Coulter, including the earth-shattering discovery that "Daily Kos postings have included the word 'faggot' at least three times in recent years, as have other liberal blogs -- without apology, and without generating a furor."
Of course, those liberals, for thet most part, didn't use the word the way Coulter used -- as a deliberate slur against an ideological opponent -- and none of those writers, unlike Coulter, have a nationally syndicated column or make regular appearances on TV as a spokesman for a point of view that is generally critical of homosexuals. Further, most of the links Goodenough provides are to screen shots of the word, not the posts themselves, thus depriving his readers of the opportunity to judge how the word was used.
For instance, Goodenough states: "Blogger Melissa McEwan, on her site Shakespeare's Sister, used the line -- in reference to Leonardo da Vinci -- "I'm not so sure it's such a good idea for students to be studying that faggot anyway." But he doesn't include the context in which the post appears -- as criticism of conservatives pushing to add a Bible class to public school (or so we can glean from the screenshot; Goodenough won't let us see the whole thread).
Another post Goodenough lists as a screenshot only, a Daily Kos post by Maryscott O'Connor, is described as "a headline reading: 'When is a faggot just a bundle of sticks?' (That posting goes on to ask, 'What's up with the little sly gay jokes? Hmm? As I read the comments in discussions on DKos, there are times when I almost have to check and see if I accidentally stumbled into a Wingnut [right-wing] blog.')" Again, Goodenough fails to include context; as Connor responded:
[T]he entire article is, in itself, a DIATRIBE against anti-gay hate speech -- specifically, anti-gay hate speech disguised as "gay jokes." I refer, in fact, to the sort of purportedly "harmless" gay jokes made by the conservative spokeswoman and preternaturally insensitive attention seeker who laughably styles herself a writer and "pundit:" Ann Coulter.
Note also the ambiguous wording of Daily Kos bloggers using the word "three times in recent years." To speak more specifically that Goodenough will: Of the thousands of posts started at Daily Kos since January 2004 (the date of the earliest post he cites), Goodenough could find only three that featured the word in a headline.
Let's not forget, too, that the word "gay" is verboten at CNS, which leads to clumsy constructions like Goodenough's use of the term "homosexual-rights groups." Perhaps Goodenough should explain to its readers why "faggot" is considered a more acceptable word to him than "gay."
We have to wonder even more now: Is the Media Research Center so in the tank that it absoultely will not criticize Ann Coulter? Does she have blackmail pics of Brent Bozell in a leather teddy, or what?
