Think Progress is one of those lefty sites that will skewer the right or Republicans at the drop of a hat:
“GOP activist drops hat; blacks and children suffer.”
That may have been a headline last week. It certainly isn’t any more outrageous than some other Think Progress headlines. How about this doozy:
“Bush Admin Tamps Down Right-Wing Desire For Mass Deportation Of Undocumented Immigrants”
If they only knew that those detention camps out west were built for liberals and not for illegal immigrants…
All of this aside, my eyes popped open today when I saw this headline at the site:
“Fox censors Sally Field’s anti-war speech at Emmy’s.”
OOOOOH those evil Fox News censors! How dare they! Just when Sally is ready to speak truth to power, they pull the plug on her. Whatever happened to the good old days when you could get up at the Emmy and Oscar Award ceremonies and spout ludicrous political screeds, ranting against greedy corporations or evil conservatives to your heart’s content? If this isn’t evidence that the country is going to hell in a hand basket under Bushitler, I don’t know what is.
No matter. This is Fox News we’re talking about here. And not one single mention of the war – unless it’s accompanied with fireworks and patriotic music – will be allowed, right?
Field then continued, “If mothers ruled the world, there would be no –†But the Fox Emmycast cut off her sound and pointed the camera away from the stage, silencing the rest of her sentence: “god-damned wars in the first place.â€
The “expletive” was “goddamned,” a no-no in the AP Style Book although the oath is heard quite frequently on cable TV shows. But Think Progress took the controversy one step further to infer that the reason Fox bleeped the sentence was because of its subject matter, not because an offensive word was uttered. After all, who else would “silence” an antiwar critic but Fox News?
If true, I hate to tell the denizens over at Think Progress, but most of the press is in on the conspiracy as well. It seems that the word “goddamned” is stricken from almost every newspaper account of the Emmy’s I could find. Here’s that closet Fox News sympathizing New York Times:
And while most of the celebratory acceptance speeches on the broadcast were uninspiring, remarks by Sally Field sent the Fox network’s censors to the mute button — not for her antiwar statements but for a vulgarity made when she remarked that her character on “Brothers & Sisters†was a mother with a son headed for combat in Iraq. If mothers ruled the world, she said in essence, there would be no wars.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch couldn’t make up its mind why poor Sally was muted:
Sally Field of ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” used her win as lead actress in a drama to make an anti-war speech tied to her character’s story line, only to be muted for several seconds at the end. It was unclear whether her remarks were considered inappropriate or whether she was just being punished for running long.
For myself, I find nothing inappropriate about the use of the word “goddamned.” However, those who are religiously inclined – a fair slice of any TV audience – are almost certainly offended by the oath which is why few newspapers reporting the story quoted it and why it is still one of the few words you rarely hear on over the air TV.
Which is why AP, the inventor of the aforementioned style book – the gospel of journalists and columnists in the English speaking world – also realized the true reason the evildoers at Fox bleeped Field’s words:
“Surely this belongs to all the mothers of the world,” Field said in a rambling acceptance speech that wound up with a swear word that had to be bleeped by Fox censors.Field’s speech recalled her much-parodied 1985 acceptance of the best-actress Oscar for “Places in the Heart,” in which she said the famous line: “I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you really like me.”
Perhaps she should pass on a little of that love to Fox News.
I have no doubt that Think Progress actually saw nothing wrong with uttering “goddamned” in front of a nationally televised audience. I don’t find much wrong with it myself. But in a case that was so clearly a matter of taste and network standards regarding language rather than anything having to do with content, you would believe that Think Progress would actually drop the juvenile finger pointing just once and not create a controversy out of whole cloth just to get their knuckle dragging commenters all in a lather over an incident that virtually the entire media sees in a different light.
This entire left wing obsession with Fox News (and Fox Broadcasting) and their supposed “bias” toward conservatives always makes me giggle. You can’t walk through a green room at Fox on any given day without tripping over a dozen liberals who are engaged by the network to give opposing views on every topic under the sun. I don’t see ABC, NBC, CBS, falling over themselves to do the same. Nor do MSNBC or CNN allow for the kind free wheeling discussions (or shoutfests) between the two sides that Fox does.
This is not to say that Fox is more watchable than any other news net. I find the same lazy reporting, the same ignorance of basic facts there as I do everywhere else. It’s just that liberal sites like Think Progress refuse to see the same thing at the other media outlets unless they feel a liberal ox is being gored – a myopia that makes any of their criticisms of Fox News ring hollow indeed.
UPDATE
The boobs at Crooks and Liars have picked up on the “war censor” meme:
At last night’s 59th Annual Emmy Awards, Sally Field, who won Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Nora Holden Walker in ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters,†was censored by FOX as she was about to make a point about the Iraq War.
Damn. And it was such a great “point” too – that it is a “goddamned war.”
Maybe Fox thought the notion that war is “goddamned” was just too original.
UPDATE II:
Methinks Think Progress thinks too much:
Field’s censored comments not technically ‘profane.’
If not “technically profane,” why do the overwhelming majority of national media outlets either not mention the exact word or employ the euphemism “expletive” or some other device to avoid printing the word? The reason is that it is offensive to millions of people.
Let me make it easier on you lefties; when you hear “goddamned” think “something Muslim.” That way, you’re sure to understand why some Christians would be upset at the use of the word in question.
Of course, Christians are not likely to come after you with a rusty knife and cut off your head for your transgression, which I guess emboldens many on the left to assert the “non-profanity” defense and try to make it appear as if Ms. Field’s anti-war message was the true target of evil Fox’s censorship. But if you imagine Fields insulting Allah or dissing the Prophet, you would have no problem understanding the bleep – anti-war nonsense about mothers running the world or not.
And speaking of mothers in charge of the planet, here’s Meryl Yourish in the comments at Hot Air on that subject:
So, is she counting the mothers like this one, who blew herself up and took four Israelis with her? Or these?
You know what? People who think that all the world’s problems would be solved if women ruled the world are full of crap.
And I say this as a woman and a feminist.
Amen, sister.
8:12 am
Thank God for sports on cable and other outlets, I’d go nuts otherwise. The media is stuck on celebs, and it makes me sick.
9:12 am
Sites such as these which are maintained by the Center for American Progress Action Fund leave no stone unturned in their quest to hurl childish insults at “prudish” Republicans and conservatives. One might expect a bit more deep thought and incisive analysis to be produced by an “action fund” tethered to CAP, a think-tank financed to the tune of $25 million per year, but it’s no better than what’s coming from your typical dead-ender still living in one of their divorced parents’ basement or drug-addled 60s/70s adherent still wandering around in a decades-old fog blaming others for their own inability to find “peace and love.” Or maybe that’s where these anarchist, communist, socialist and other anti-establishment types get their material?
Based on their 2005 tax return, CAP’s 501©(4) “action fund” took in $1.7 million and burned through $1.4 million in contributions. (It may well be more per annum in subsequent years.)
One would expect an “action fund” being managed by an organization which is trademarking itself heavily with the word “progress” would have meaningful and positive results to show for $1.4 million, but alas all which can be found is a propaganda mill and an echo chamber.
Come to think of it, one nice byproduct is having all the nutty “liberals” who literally buy into this effluent practicing their “activism” while safely glued to their computers, instead of interfering with commerce and destroying property whilst rioting in the streets. Sane and rational observers can only hope the more imbalanced people in this group can get professional psychiatric help before their unhinged thoughts and behaviors start seeping out into the “real world.”
10:05 am
I am a big movie fan. In my den is a 50” plasma HDTV with and a surround sound system. So, rather than racing to pay $50 to see a movie in the theater, I wait and buy the DVD. A rationalization perhaps, but I figure we save $25.
One of my favorite movies is Hunt for Red October. Alec Baldwin did a fair job reading the words Tom Clancey wrote. I also have Mystic River, where Sean Penn plays a Boston thug so well one cannot tell that he is acting. Jane Fonda was the perfect prostitute in Klute.
Actors can be convincing on the silver screen, but when they open their mouths without a good script, it can be career limiting. Maybe more people would watch the Oscars and Emmys if the winners came to the podium and said, “Thank you all very much. I am honored,” then smiled and go sat down.
10:21 am
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 09/17/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
10:49 am
Bottom line is if you list Fox News a major source of your news with out balancing by other sources you are indeed a propagandized mindless numbbot.
In fact, news is one area where the free-market does rather poorly compared to the Public Broadcast Stations.
This is not just my opinion but is based on evidence showing Fox News viewers being far more likely to believe Saddam Hussien was behind the 9-11 attacks (dopes) compared with people who tended to watch CSPAN or PBS.
I watch Fox regularly but mostly for comedy….except when they put the stuff on that’s supposed to be comedy to compete with The Daily Show and all that. That stuff is so lame its hard to watch. But O’Rielly thinking he’s so cool is a crack up and Hannity when he is close to bursting an anuurysms is a blast…the guys so hate-filled and miserable I just love him.
10:51 am
Good thing I rarely ban people for stupidity. Otherwise, you would have been gone after the first paragraph.
11:03 am
Maya Angelou recorded a nonsensical endorsement video for Ms. Rodham Clinton in which she says HRC represents “all mothers, and our grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, and their mothers and …” (not an exact quote, but pretty close – it’s up on YouTube). Imho, Angelou opened the floodgates for this blather.
Thanks for the refreshing post.
11:08 am
Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T45O9q_BQKA&mode=user&search=
OR http://tinyurl.com/2a7qa7
This is the peroration, towards the very end of the clip:
[quote]
Ever since you stood up as a woman
and said, “Yes, I am a woman.”
Phenomenal woman
that’s my mother
and all your mothers
and my grandmothers
and all your grandmothers
and my great-grandmothers and yours
and great-greats and great-greats
and all you women here
along with Hillary Rodham Clinton
and me.
[endquote]
11:17 am
Most of us as adults do not use the word in casual conversation, at least most people I know. I would guess that you would rarely hear it on the speaking circuit. It is a word often used for but not specifically limited to a time when you hit your thumb with a hammer, spilled coffee in your lap or perhaps when you’ve lost to a better hand in poker or maybe even by your boss when you have shown your incompetence. In the context and forum which Sally chose to us the word, it was an attention grabber but it could also have been an inducement by young minds to spike up their vocabulary a little.
Ditto’s arch.
“Maybe more people would watch the Oscars and Emmys if the winners came to the podium and said, “Thank you all very much. I am honored,†then smiled and go sat down.”
Or maybe if they just alluded to their cause.
11:24 am
Sally Fields Anti-War Rant Muted at Emmys…
Video at Hot Air. Basically, she was going to go on about how if mothers ruled the world, there w…
......
11:37 am
If this is like most rightie blogs you will indeed eventually have to ban me for stupidity….not my own of course but for revealing the stupid non-sensical self contradictory message that the Republicans attempt to pass for a political ideology.
It’s so internally inconsistent and in practice shows itself to be a complete failure, based on lies and a need to undermind democracy with power an wealth enough to rectuit a hord of ork-like followers.
It truly amazes me anyone now adays that anyone has such a lack of self respect so as to call them selves republican. I mean why not just get orange hair a big red nose and a honnky hand horn.
11:59 am
Muirgeo: spellcheck is a useful tool.
12:14 pm
Karen Said:
11:59 am
Muirgeo: spellcheck is a useful tool.
So are Republican voters.
12:38 pm
[...] There’s more over at Michelle Malkin |Gateway Pundit | Right Wing Nut House [...]
12:46 pm
muirgeo, You’re a flippin idiot.
12:53 pm
The show was not broadcast on Fox News, which is a cable network and has the same FCC rules as other cable networks. It was broadcast on the Fox Network, on over the airwaves local TV stations – and the FCC does not allow such language on over-the-air stations. It’s similar to the Janet Jackson breast-baring on CBS - again, over-the-air stations.
1:09 pm
muirgeo…
Liberals control 90% of the MSM and 90% of academia, providing a propaganda machine Hitler & Stalin could only dream of. Liberals demand lock-step obedience, no independence, tow the line, tell us what we can say, what we can’t say, police our thought, assume a constitutional “right” not to be offended (but go out of their way to offend others), tell us who we have to tolerate & who we should hate.
There’s a word for all this. It’s called fascism.
Don’t look now muirgeo, but we’re the counter culture. You’re the sheep.
Baa-aaa-aaa…
..jackass.
..jackass.
1:11 pm
And, yes. If mothers ran the world there would be no war…
..unless Al Qaeda started hording Jimmy Choos.
3:32 pm
Normally I woudl agree with your appraisal of “Think Progess,” but today we have this silly story about The truth about the Naval Academy.
To call these people stupid would be a affront to stupid people.
I suppose that Idris and her mom thought that the Naval Academy members sit about contemplating there navals[sic].
3:38 pm
Sorry you think the use of gd is perfectly ok. This means you do not obey the injunction not to take the Lord’s name in vain. Little things like this slip into our usage, and soon few if any of the Ten Commandments are being followed. It’s the old broken window philosophy again.
Or, you take the right to select which Commandments you are willing to violate (no direct punishment),and which you elect to obey, such as not to murder, which is also a criminal law and you get hanged for it.
4:14 pm
Just Googled “Mothers Against” and got the following hits:
First, it was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers
Then Mothers Against Videogame Addiction & Violence
Then Mothers Against Methamphetamine
Then Mothers Against Illegal Aliens
Then Mothers Against Misuse & Abuse (of drugs)
Then Mothers Against Sexual Abuse
Then Mothers Against Gang Wars
Then Mothers Against Teen Violence
Then Mothers Against Tolerating Terror
Okay so far.
Then Mothers Against Noise
Then Mothers Against Star Wars Galaxies
Then Mothers Against Circumcision
Then Mothers Against Dog Chaining
Then Mothers Against War
We’re getting into grey areas now.
Then Mothers Against the Draft
Then Mothers Against Brain Injury
Then Mothers Against Murder & Aggression
Then Mothers Against Burning Tires
Then Mothers Against School Hazing
Then Mothers Against Senseless Killing
Is there anyone who is For any of the above?
Then Mothers Against (Joe) Arpaio
Then Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up
Then Mothers Against Guns
Then Mothers Against Blogging
Now we’ve crossed the line!
Soon we’ll see Mothers Against Beautiful Women
Then Mothers Against Beer
Then Mothers Against Dogs
Then Mothers Against Single Malts
Then Mothers Against Sports
Then Mothers Against Fun!
Do we need some Father Against organizations?
Maybe the Mullahs have it right:
Fathers Against the Women Against Stuff (FATWAS)
.
9:53 pm
#5
An unoriginal twit who’s been trolling numerous conservative sites with simplistic “liberal” talking points wouldn’t know the first thing about objectivity, much less being in any position to lecture others about maintaining balance in their choice of MSM sources.
2:02 am
@Lamontyoubigdummy:
“Liberals control 90% of the MSM and 90% of academia, providing a propaganda machine Hitler & Stalin could only dream of. Liberals demand lock-step obedience, no independence, tow the line, tell us what we can say, what we can’t say, police our thought . . ” etc. etc.
Wow. You forgot eat babies and kick puppies.
Loosen the tinfoil hat.
2:43 pm
#22
An unoriginal twit who…... wouldn’t know the first thing about objectivity….
Said the guy who’s party could not win with its block of voters who think the world is 6,000 years old…..