Posts tagged MTV

Interestingly enough a joke made by late-night comedian/talk show host, Conan O’Brien, really struck a chord with me the other night when he said: “MTV threw Kanye West out after he grabbed Taylor Swift’s microphone. MTV has a lower tolerance for bad behavior than the U.S. Congress.”

True indeed it seems Kanye is left to apologize four times in various mediums for his unquestionably rude behavior, yet, when elected official, Joe Wilson,  disrespects the Command-in-Chief and for many his one apology suffices. Seriously? Something is wrong with that.

I was sent an OP-Ed piece today, by Maureen Dowd, that does attempt to speak on the issue of relations in this country and harps in on some interesting things, like, “Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president – no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq – convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.”

You Lie

Here’s a bit of “Boy, Oh Boy”:

The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind.

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys – a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club – Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ‘48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer – the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids – had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids – from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president – no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq – convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

“A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president,” said Congressman Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the South Carolina delegation. Clyburn, the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary, pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson.

Check out the rest of the piece, here.