Humiliated Events

Human Events is one of the few magazines, online or otherwise, that continues to publish the screeds of Ann Coulter after she has managed to alienate all the reasonable conservatives in the world (seriously, I know a LOT of conservatives, and none of them like her; most are embarassed by her). Human Events publishes a lot of equally shitty material, from pieces by Bill O'Reilly to various nationalist manifestos by the increasingly irrelevant Pat Buchanan. But even by the already sub-basement standards of Coulter, O'Reilly and Buchanan, today the magazine sunk to a depth so low that its own readership absolutely freaked out.

They ran an audio spoof piece by Matt Fox and AJ Rice, writers and producers for Talk Radio Network. TRN broadcasts several right-wing haters, the most notable being Michael Savage, who, among other things, mercilessly attacked kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart on the air, and who called news anchor Diane Sawyer "a lying whore." The spoof is of little Sasha Obama, who told her father she loved him on live television last night following Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. The spoof piece has her insulting white people, asking about Reverend Wright, and announcing her intention to go to PDiddy's champaign after-party. Sasha Obama is seven years old.

With tails between their legs, Human Events took the audio piece off the site, but left the empty shell of the link there, along with several dozen comments from shocked conservatives, wondering why their flagship rag had sunk to that depth (and a few comments calling for more attacks on Obama's children on the grounds that, since said candidate has children, and has allowed the media to photograph and interview those children, those children are therefore "fair game"). [UPDATE: THE SPOOF RECORDING IS BACK AT THE SITE. IT WAS EITHER TAKEN OFF IN ERROR, OR RESTORED. EITHER WAY, IT SEEMS NOW TO BE THE OFFICIAL POLICY OF _HUMAN EVENTS_ TO BROADCAST REPRESENTATIONS SPOOFING A SEVEN YEAR-OLD GIRL, IMPLYING ALL THE THINGS I LISTED ABOVE. THIS IS BEYOND DISGUSTING.]

The superintelligent and nuanced (that's sarcasm, folks) "Democrat=Socialist" web site still has the piece, and makes no apology for running it.

A big thumbs up to all the conservatives that are criticizing Human Events for running the spoof clip in the first place. I continue to be impressed by people who are willing to transcend party lines in order to do the right thing. But will those same conservatives swear off the votes McCain gets from racists? Will they swear off talk show host (and Ronald's son) Michael Reagan, who has repeatedly issued death threats on his show? I'm not holding my breath--and I'm not giving Democrats a free pass either--anyone who sends me information about Democrat house organs doing anything similar to what Human Events and TRN did to Sasha Obama will be rewarded with my publishing that information and condemning any such attack without hesitation. Bourgeois politics makes such attacks inevitable, since neither side can really afford to discuss the issues--the conclusions are too systemic to be comfortable or convenient.