CNN'S Falwell Coverage

[Michael Tee]

CNN is giving the Guardian of America's Moral Purity the kid-gloves treatment.  I caught both Larry King and then Anderson Cooper last night and they were obviously soft-pedalling the fascism and the anti-Semitism.  King had a "panel" of three - - the milquetoast Robert Schuler who managed to distance himself from Falwell's extremism without a single critical word, Franklin Graham, who basically ducked every negative, asinine Falwell utterance that King was able to dig up (to my amazement, he dug up quite a few!) and some gay guy who had once worked with Falwell and then came out of the closet either before or after breaking with him.  The most the gay guy could work up in lieu of condemnation was his great "sorrow" (nobody in the whole country is actually angry at the man)  that he'd never been able to turn Falwell around on homosexuality the way he'd apparently been turned around on apartheid.

It wasn't clear to me from the program - - I think this was during one of my getting-up-to-brew-more-tea moments - - but was Falwell the guy who told his flock that "the Jew can make more money by accident than you good folks can in a lifetime of hard work?"  Somehow that remark had come up, but I wasn't sure if it was a Falwell quote or not.

But Anderson Cooper was a little more adventurous.  He actually allowed Christopher Hitchens, an English journalist, to hold forth at length on Falwall the fraud, Falwell the "charlatan."  Wasn't he at least sincere in the beliefs he expressed?  Anderson asks.  (Great question - - kinda like asking if Hitler wasn't at least sincere in what he said. )   "No" was Hitchens' answer. 

What I found interesting was that in a country of 300 million people, the only person Anderson Cooper could find to provide a ringing unequivocal denunciation of this pompous fraud was an obvious Englishman.  This had the dual effect of (a) making Anderson Cooper look particularly daring and impartial in going farther than anyone else in "questioning" Falwell's worth and (b) undercutting in the subtlest possible way the actual negative impact of the critique (snobbish, condescending Limey bastard, who else could possibly harbour such outrageous views?)  As if he hadn't done enough undercutting of the anti-Falwell POV, Cooper then in effect apologized (indirectly) at least twice for airing the view by explaining to his audience that the show was really trying to bring in all kinds of opinions.  (Please forgive us for bringing this garbage into your living rooms, folks, but . . . . ")The only remaining step for Cooper to have taken was to have pinched his own nostrils shut and grimaced in disgust while Hitchens was speaking.

So Falwell passed, with all the blessings of the corporate state upon him.   For a man who claims to have been a follower of JEEEziz, he sure wasn't shaking up any roosts.  Just the kind of preacher the warfare state loves and cherishes.

[The_Professor]

So, MT, you are basically sad that more tacky, low-class and crass individuals could not be scraped off the bottom of the barrel to attack a man recently-deceased? Geez.....

[R.R.]

"the Jew can make more money by accident than you good folks can in a lifetime of hard work?"

That sounds more like Rev. Sharpton, who referred to Jews as "diamond merchants."

[Plane]

It isn't possible that you have some wrong impressions abut Jerry Falwell?



This is the kind of problem one gets from learning everything about someone from his worst enemys?



What do you think of my opnions about Karl Marx?

[Michael Tee]

<<What do you think of my opnions about Karl Marx?>>

I dunno, plane.  What ARE your opinions about Karl Marx?

[Michael Tee]

<<So, MT, you are basically sad that more tacky, low-class and crass individuals could not be scraped off the bottom of the barrel to attack a man recently-deceased? Geez.....>>

Tacky, low-class and crass would be my description of most of the followers of this guy, and of all the other televangelists who solicit funds, spread hatred and appeal to the lowest common denominator in their racism and their diviseness.  No, Professor, I'm merely commenting on the disingenuous way the MSM - - well, let's keep the focus on CNN, because that's the only one I watch - - pretend they are giving you the spectrum of opinion on Falwell, a man who's insulted in his day Jews, blacks, gay people and Muslims - - but put the only openly hostile opinion on Falwell squarely on the shoulders of a "foreigner," an Englishman.  That was slanting the opinion as much as Fox News slants its opinions, but with a quantum leap in subtlety - - 99% of the morons eating up their (CNN's) crap will never realize they've been conned.  I was admiring their technique.  It was worthy of Josef Goebbels.

[Plane]

<<What do you think of my opnions about Karl Marx?>>

I dunno, plane.  What ARE your opinions about Karl Marx?

I could aply every word you use for Falwell, to Marx ,and justify them by reference to the sorces I learned them from , none of them freinds of Marx.

[Michael Tee]

<<I could aply every word you use for Falwell, to Marx ,and justify them by reference to the sorces I learned them from , none of them freinds of Marx.>>

Yeah?  Could you also say that Falwell was a brilliant economist and produced some of the most insightful views of capitalism ever recorded?