H8ers Gotta H8
The real haters are in the media, some of them the openly left-leaning media and some of them claiming to be mainstream. But oh, how vilely they spew their hatred.
So began Quin Hillyer's
epic rant in the
National Review last Sunday. For the 17th year in a row, Hillyer has put his blood pressure through the rigors of judging the annual Notable Quotables Awards and it's taking a toll. What are the
Notable Quotables Awards, you ask?
Each year, the Media Research Center compiles the most outrageous and/or humorous news media quotes from the preceding year, as determined by a panel of leading media observers (radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, and editorial writers). The year-end edition features video and text for the winners and top runners-up in a variety of categories, such as the “Damn Those Conservatives Award,” “The Tea Party Terrorists Award,” “The Obamagasm Award,” “The Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year,” along with the “Quote of the Year.”
Please continue reading below the fold.
Ah, yes, that bastion of dignity and integrity, the Media Research Center. In case you are unfamiliar with this outfit, the Media Research Center was founded by the perpetually pissed-off Brent Bozell to "prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values." Conservatives really, really love "sound scientific research" but only if it's actually not sound and can be manipulated however they see fit.
Carrying Bozell's water, Hillyer manufactured new heights of conservative pique with this year's crop of nominations.
Up first, Hillyer takes Andrea Mitchell to the woodshed for having the audacity to point out one of the obvious tactics the Republicans employed to sweep the mid-term elections. Said Mitchell, “It was a scare tactic by the Republican opponents of Democratic incumbents, who tried to focus on ISIS and Ebola in the scariest, most nonfactual ways” and she was quite right, of course. Hillyer didn't provide any counter-argument because he couldn't. He was just seriously peeved that she pointed it out and wanted you to know it.
Hillyer then sets his sights on a comment made by Think Progress' Alan Pyke during an electrically charged moment as Ferguson was unfolding. Rightly appalled at the Fox News coverage of the events, Pyke tweeted, "I hope Roger Ailes dies slow, painful, and soon. The evil that man has done to the American tapestry is unprecedented for an individual." The last sentence is spot on. The first sentence deserved stern pushback and Pyke took his lumps. He then rightly apologized.
If ever there was a contrite apology, this was it. Yet, the fine folks over at Breitbart still called for his head, saying Pyke "apologized, sort of" while Hillyer snarked, "But that’s okay. After all, we’re killers." Sincere remorse is an unknown, a game to these people.
Of all our liberal offenses in 2014, none seemed to hold an outrage candle to an article that appeared on Gawker by Adam Weinstein titled "Arrest Climate-Change Deniers." This piece got a lot of attention last March and certainly pissed off all the right people.
Man-made climate change happens. Man-made climate change kills a lot of people. It's going to kill a lot more. We have laws on the books to punish anyone whose lies contribute to people's deaths. It's time to punish the climate-change liars.
Let's make a clear distinction here: I'm not talking about the man on the street who thinks Rush Limbaugh is right, and climate change is a socialist United Nations conspiracy foisted by a Muslim U.S. president on an unwitting public to erode its civil liberties.
But there is scientific skepticism... and there is a malicious, profiteering quietist agenda posturing as skepticism. There is uncertainty about whether man-made climate change can be stopped or reversed... and there is the body of purulent pundits, paid sponsors, and corporate grifters who exploit the smallest uncertainty at the edges of a settled science.
I'm talking about Rush and his multi-million-dollar ilk in the disinformation business. I'm talking about Americans for Prosperity and the businesses and billionaires who back its obfuscatory propaganda. I'm talking about public persons and organizations and corporations for whom denying a fundamental scientific fact is profitable, who encourage the acceleration of an anti-environment course of unregulated consumption and production that, frankly, will screw my son and your children and whatever progeny they manage to have.
Weinstein made it painstakingly clear in his piece that it is the profiteers from the denial of climate change who should be held accountable, not your average Joe Blow sitting on his Barcalounger bobbing his head along to Fox News. But for Hillyer, it was an opportunity to insinuate that anyone who denies climate change will be dragged from their homes and put in a FEMA Re-education Camp. Hillyer wraps up his screed with some blunt, surprising honesty:
Okay, Mr. Weinstein: Come get us. Bring your shackles for us. But just remember that the caves we live in are dark and deep and that, to fend off the saber-toothed tigers, we carry awfully big clubs.
Other than pointing out a couple of stupid things Chris Matthews said and Charles Pierce eloquently calling Sarah Palin an idiot, that's pretty much all Hillyer offers as proof that the liberal media is chock full of unfounded and unwarranted H8. This is how these people work. Take the worst traits in themselves, fling it like poo onto their adversaries, and call it gotcha. Never mind that offering up all the examples of actual hate the right wing has spewed over the course of 2014 would likely break this website.
One last word for Mr. Hillyer, the meme is H8ers Gonna H8. You could have at least gotten that right.