elementropy: Ammo For Glennzilla

Saturday, March 02, 2013

Ammo For Glennzilla

Glenn Greenwald sez:

I'm currently writing a book on how media outlets constrict the range of political debate, using (in part) the marginalization of Chomsky as a window into how that works.

MOAR like an Overton Window into how that works, amirite? A semi-revealing quote from Howie the Putz's self-serving, wingnut-petting tome Hot Air: All Talk, All The Time:

"Mike looks absurd saying 'from the left' every night," says Christopher Hitchens. "It's hypocritical on the part of both him and the network." Kinsley concedes that he does not uphold the liberal banner the way [Pat] Buchanan champions conservatism. In fact, he calls himself "a wishy-washy moderate." But he insists it's not necessarily bad for liberalism that he is less ideological than his right-wing counterpart. "Certainly real hard-core, left-wing opinions don't get on Crossfire, just as they don't get on other shows," he says. "This is partly because a reflection of the range of American political debate, from extreme right to moderate left. And it's partly a knee-jerk reaction by television producers."

Further context and citation at the link; I'm not gonna paste and re-paste my own stuff lest I become a boring self-quotation machine like the inexplicably admired ex-Randroid Arthur Silber. Also, Glenn might want to check on concentration camp-enthusiast Josh Trevino's hilarious notion of what is and is not a proper representative of the left in the media or, indeed, anywhere in decent society.

Also, too: The previous post.

Also, too, as well, cf. Chomsky: Somewhere out there on the internets is a very old interview with Chomsky by a rabidly hostile David Frum; I'll try to find it. Frum likes to affect moderation now but he used to be as frothy ~~as Santorum~~ as Erich von Erich, but as I recall even adjusting for era and context it was obnoxious. And who can forget what happened when Chomsky's blog at ZMag first allowed comments? At that time it was the longest comment thread I'd ever seen and it was 90% blargery -- with no small portion of antisemitism -- thanks to the "there it is, go get 'em" links posted by the allegedly philosemitic Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and LGF.