Monday, March 9, 2009
Barry / Media What Does an Op-Ed Columnist Have to Do to Get Fired Around Here?
Posted by Bruce Barry on Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 8:00 AM
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Wilson County schools a couple of years ago over the annual See You at the Pole event and the National Day of Prayer....A federal judge threw the case out. Even though they lost, it was apparently enough to spook school administrators."Threw the case out" is, to say the least, a creative reinterpretation of U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Echols' 59-page finding that:
The [plaintiffs] have proved by a preponderance of the evidence that they suffered a constitutional violation and they will suffer a continuing irreparable injury if they are not able to enroll their children in Lakeview because Lakeview is not complying with First Amendment religious freedoms...The Court will grant the [plaintiffs] limited permanent injunctive relief.We all realize that facts are a fleeting and optional commodity in conservative talk radio, but isn't it high time that The Tennessean stopping giving prime Sunday op-ed real estate to a lowbrow hack who just makes shit up? (Disclosure: I sit on the ACLU of Tennessee board.)
Comments (13)
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Phil has as much concept about reality as a stray dog knows his father. Phil should be awadred the biggest trophy for being a idiot.
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Remember: This is the same newspaper that kept Tim Chavez on the payroll long after he fabricated a report on a supposed massacre in Najaf which, according to the New York Times and other basically reputable outlets, never happened. In other words: Don't hold your breath for them to dump Valentine.
And, one of the major reasons I could not read nor support The Tennessean any longer. I appreciate the "Pith" for keeping me informed about my good decision.
Perhaps...perhaps not. I just saw this, and maybe you've seen it (and even posted it) already as well?
http://www.newstechzilla.com/2009/03/tennessees-four-dailies-to-share-content/
I had no idea...or maybe Phil will be writing for Chattanooga as well...
Phil Valentine is a coward. If seen in public Phil acts so very timid unlike the loud mouth goof ball propaganda he spreads on his show.
Bruce, you are exactly right about the Wilson County suit. You might have added that the whole premise of yesterday's column, ie., that the First Amendment applies only to Congress but not to the states, is also incorrect. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held (for perhaps a century?), the First Amendment applies to the states through operation of the "priviledges and immunities" clause of the 14th Amendment. I wonder if the paper's policy on correcting errors applies to Valentine's column? Someone should ask.
I actually think Phil Valentine is Bill Maher's conservative alter ego. I can't believe no one has realized this before. If true, it would be Maher's funniest stuff ever.
Valentine knows the facts of the case and lied anyway because he knows his fans can't be bothered to look them up on their own.
Telling conservatives what they want to hear instead of the truth has been the modus operandi of conservative talk radio since at least 1998. Where the hell have you been, Bruce?
@Henry Yes I was going to turn the post into a lengthy meditation on the constitutional principle of incorporation, something of which Valentine sems blissfully unaware, but I ran out of steam.
@spaz Agreed that's how right wing talk radio works routinely; my beef is with The Tennessean, which allows itself to be a platform for outright fabrication by an op-ed columnist. As Henry suggests there should be corrections of factual errors by columnists, not just reporters.
The Tennessean is terrified that right-wingers won't read their paper, that is why Valentine is even writing a column. And editorial columnists (especially talk radio con artists) routinely make stuff up, so I don't think the Tennessean is going to fact check before-hand. They knew what they were getting. An even more grievous example is the City Paper running syndicated columns by Michael Reagan. His columns were so ridiculous and outright distorted that it just strained credulity that he could continue to make money writing columns. Of course, he is also a talk radio guy (and the son of St. Ronnie, of course). The most famous recent example was the NYT running William Kristol op-eds. All of these papers just want to advertise to conservatives that they are conservative friendly. And conservatives don't want intelligent conservatism from David Brooks or George Will, they want red meat faux conservative populism. Until Valentine screws up with a "Barack the Magic Negro" type moment, he will continue to get free reign, because the Tennessean has no journalistic balls.
More Leftist projection. I thought you guys were about freedom of speech? I thought you were about "dissent is the highest form of patriotism"? I guess you were just making shit up.
I also note that you made no substative criticism of his basic point, that "separation of church and State" is an un-Constitutional doctrine. The Constitution doesn't say that, and it doesn't mean that, revisionist Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding. No, what we got from you, and the subsequent commenters, was mostly ad hominem attacks. Those make you look so clever. You think.
