TRASH TALK ON ‘HARDBALL’

Posted on May 13, 2003 by Dave Pollard
Right-wing talk-show host Michael Graham, quoted in yesterday’s Hardball transcript :

Anyone listening to Hillary Rodham in her speech last week about patriotism, that screaming, screeching fingernail, I wanted to bludgeon her with a tire iron. That’s what I wanted to do.

I don’t understand how this kind of thing is tolerated, not even challenged by program host Chris Matthews, in a country that views any insult to the unelected president as anti-American or treasonous. Everything I read in the US media is making less and less sense. This is absolutely shameful, disgraceful, unworthy of the name journalism. This man would not find employment in journalism in any other country in the world.

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6 Responses to TRASH TALK ON ‘HARDBALL’

  1. Marie Foster says:
    May 13, 2003 at 23:39

    It is not journalism. It is entertainment. The fact that people get their yuks from this kind of baseless attack is what is truly sad about this country. If you can not break down a person’s argument to make your point you use insults. It is acceptable especially if the person is part of a marginalized group. For a long time I thought that women were making progress in being allowed to participate in political discourse. But the truth is that our views are seen by many men as being foreign or false or just not worthy.There is a good book out there that is titled “The Writing or the Sex?: Or Why You Don’t Have to Read Women’s Writing to Know It’s No Good (Athene Series)”. It pretty well summarizes the truth about the fact that males rarely acknowledge women’s issues or ideas as having equal value to their own.

  2. Dave Pollard says:
    May 14, 2003 at 06:09

    That’s interesting. So you think if Graham had said this about a man there would have been more serious repercussions? Or is the point that no one would say this about a man in the first place?

  3. Susan says:
    May 14, 2003 at 07:15

    I think Marie’s point is possibly that this kind of violent rhetoric is often, though certainly not exclusively, directed at powerful liberal women. I’ve heard over the years many violent statements like that about Hillary Clinton, more so than I’ve heard about men (I don’t hear the physical threats so much directed at men–more often liberal men are called “wimps” or “irrelevent” or “unpatriotic”). Men in this country seem extremely threatened by her. Even so-called liberal men I’ve known absolutely hate her. Conservative women generally don’t have this problem, as men see them as “safe”.There’s always exceptions, but this is the general trend I’ve noticed in the US.

  4. Marie Foster says:
    May 14, 2003 at 07:26

    Well Dave I can tell you that from my own blogging and the ability to be anon. I am given more ‘truck’ in comments or in articles I have written where my sex is unknown on sites where the readership is primarily male.

  6. Dave Pollard says:
    May 14, 2003 at 16:11

    Ironically, Paul, it was discussion of the Ryan remark that led to the Graham remark.I don’t know what distresses me more: that journalists can make remarks like this about anyone (except about the Bush regime) with impunity and public indifference, or that it is apparently more acceptable to make these remarks about women, successful women in particular.

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