Its not just AOL. On Monday, Yahoo! included a slanted article in its list of the day’s top headlines. And that article, noting that Secretary of State Condoleezza “Rice faces silent protest in Boston,” led by focusing on the losing team’s score.
Despite this headline, the reporter noted that the protest “was smaller than had been expected and those among the 25,000 crowd who gave her a standing ovation outnumbered those who sat in silence.” Seems that this title, “Despite scattered protests, Rice gets standing ovation in Boston,” would more accurately describe the event.
Even as the reporter notes that more students gave the Secretary of State a standing ovation than protested, he focuses on the protesters. Here’s a protest that doesn’t meet its organizers’ expectations — and those of the media. But this reporter just couldn’t let go of the story he want to tell.
It’s also interesting to note that conservative speakers at college commencements frequently draw protests from left-wing students and faculty, more often the latter nowadays than the former. Conservative students, however, seem more tolerant of left-wing commencement speakers. We just don’t hear of conservatives protesting such speakers. Maybe it’s just that we’re less well represented on university faculties.
This story shows two kinds of bias — the media eager to make conservatives look bad and left-wing professors (and their student followers) eager to prevent them from addressing university commencements.
Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
Whoa… Rice got a large-scale standing O… (or multiple of them, by one account I read)… and the Reuters headline is “Rice faces silent protest”??
LOL
Maybe you could also comment on conservative Catholics protesting against commencement addresses by Elliott Spitzer and Hillary Clinton ( http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1384682/posts ).
Or conservative Yale students who protested when Hillary Clinton spoke at graduation ceremonies there in 2001 ( http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:73090186&ctrlInfo=Round20%3AMode20a%3ADocG%3AResult&ao= ).
Or when Phil Donahue was boo-ed when he spoke at N.C. State.
Or Rush Limbaugh complaining that Chris Hedges was allowed to give a commencement address at Rockford College.
Or the gang at Free Republic organizing a protest against Bill Clinton’s commencement speech at the University of Texas ( http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1635362/posts ).
Don’t these incidents bother you, too? Why aren’t they worthy of mention? Methinks this shows a third kind of bias: your willingness to condemn “liberals” for doing that which you happily ignore when conservatives do it. Oh, wait… that isn’t bias, that’s hypocrisy.
Well said on both accounts. The media will choose the story they “see” out of the matrix of news which they, oft times, do not see. When you want only protests you see only protests. George Bush could turn water into wine and the media headline would read, “Bush pollutes water and endangers children.”
It’s also interesting to note that conservative speakers at college commencements frequently draw protests from left-wing students and faculty, more often the latter nowadays than the former. Conservative students, however, seem more tolerant of left-wing commencement speakers. We just don’t hear of conservatives protesting such speakers. Maybe it’s just that we’re less well represented on university faculties.
There’s a very simple reason; we’re adults who have figured out that a) people won’t always agree with you and b) that a) does not require you to make a public spectacle over it.
Or the gang at Free Republic organizing a protest against Bill Clinton’s commencement speech at the University of Texas.
Um….your own source shows that that was a protest OUTSIDE a Democratic Party fundraiser.
Furthermore, your Buckley quote says only that students are planning, not that they actually DID, and your Catholic quote only talks about outside organizations, not students directly.
Why do you repeatedly misquote sources, Anonymous?
I hardly think it’s hypocrisy to point out a problem when it is noticed. Maybe you should get a blog Anonymous, so that we can read your insights into problems like this?
Or maybe just a name or email address? Must be might nice to be able to take potshots without being an actual human being on line.
Froyd– It is hypocrisy when his outrage is so fickle. Conservative protesters boo-ing Phil Donahue at Rockford doesn’t get noticed, but a “silent protest” against Condi does? I’m sorry, but that is just a little too convenient.
Conservative protesters boo-ing Phil Donahue at Rockford doesn’t get noticed, but a “silent protest” against Condi does? I’m sorry, but that is just a little too convenient.
Of course, you note Anonymous doesn’t link to that incident — and the details show why; turns out, Phil Donahue was deliberately provocative.
Not having sent 3,000 of our boys to their deaths for no good reason, how provocative could he have been?
In any case, I see your point. Bad behavior is excused if you were provoked. Boo-ing and acting up at commencement is perfectly acceptable if the speaker FORCED you to do it! Way to absolve the audience of any responsibility for their actions there!
Off topic, but it’s funny beyond belief.
So, you Republican apologists, just why is the carpet-bagger governor of Massachusetts, Mitt “the snitt” Romney, going to Baghdad. Under tight security, of course, lest he were to get his titties shot off.
Do I sense a run at the presidency? You bet I do. He wouldn’t get re-elected to the governorship her. Nor would he be elected to dog-catcher.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/05/25/romney_makes_surprise_stop_in_baghdad?mode=PF
One wonders–why doesn’t he volunteer for service in Iraq? Probably for the same reason that the other Republican chicken-hawks never served anywhere.
Unfortunately, Raj, the vast majority of the armed forces of the United States, according to election tallies, ARE Republican. Republicans are already doing the bulk of the fighting against the terrorists that you and your fellow Democrats like Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clark support.
Furthermore, you missed this statement:
Romney is traveling with Governors Matt Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, and Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat from Montana. The governor scoffed yesterday at suggestions by Democrats and political analysts that he was burnishing his foreign policy credentials, noting that he is the 29th governor to visit Iraq during the war and that the tours sponsored by the Defense Department are primarily focused on meeting members of guard and reserve units.
So, Raj, unless you want to say all 28 of those other governors were “political opportunists”, you might want to rethink your statements.
Also, tell all the nice people here how you opposed the Afghan war.
Not having sent 3,000 of our boys to their deaths for no good reason, how provocative could he have been?
People in North Carolina tend not to take well people like Donahue who get up on the podium and whine how 3,000 American lives are not worth putting an end to brutal regimes that killed, tortured, imprisoned, and disrupted millions of lives.
They rightly see that as hypocritical and racist.
#11 North Dallas Thirty — May 25, 2006 @ 3:48 am – May 25, 2006
So, Raj, unless you want to say all 28 of those other governors were “political opportunists”, you might want to rethink your statements.
Sorry, but I won’t. Aside from the fact that I’m not being taxed to pay for the salaries of “all 28 of those other governors” who might have gone onto those junkets to Iraq (for what purpose?) I, as a taxpayer in Massachusetts, am being taxed to pay for the salary of Mitt “the Snitt” Romney, the carpetbagger from Utah. Even while he is going hither and yon in the American south and southwest bashing the politics of the state of which he is ostensibly governor, but over which he yields no power. Hey, whatever; he isn’t running for re-election here (good riddance to bad rubbish). Why? He is running for president in 2008, and he, dumb though he is, knows that he would not be re-elected. Maybe he should have checked out the governorship of Utah in 2002.
#12 North Dallas Thirty — May 25, 2006 @ 3:52 am – May 25, 2006
People in North Carolina tend not to take well people like Donahue who get up on the podium and whine how 3,000 American lives are not worth putting an end to brutal regimes that killed, tortured, imprisoned, and disrupted millions of lives.
Maybe those people in North Carolina should be encouraged to establish a Crusade (einen Kreuzzug). Paid for by themselves, and dispatched to the Promised Land of Iraq for Beute and plunder. And paid for by the pope der Ratzinger (the Nazi coward). And maybe they would leave the rest of us alone.
We’d see how long that silliness from NC lasts. I doubt that it would last very long. Just how much money does NC have for foreign adventures? Maybe they could hire Halliburton or Bechtel to provide advice. I wouldn’t suggest the latter, given the lousy management that Bechtel provided for the Republican-managed Boston “Big Dig” project–which has left tunnels that leak like seives.
I am not really all that bothered by governors or congress members visiting Iraq.
Keeping in mind that almost every state (maybe all, but I haven’t actually researched, so I am going for the weasel word) has had national guard or reserve troops posted in Iraq at one time or another. A governor visiting the citizens of his/her state to encourage them and check on their welfare doesn’t seem out of the question for me. If I was in Iraq it might be nice to have a visit from my governor or congress member.
NDXXX, your instincts are correct –again. On the attempted baiting by raj baby with the chickenhawk taunt –which he must have picked up on OutSports while leering at lycra glad high school wrestlers like the other leacherous, old men on that site– he’s all wet because most military rank and file and leadership DO rightly support the Pres. Good job, NDXXX.
raj baby, one of those 28 governors was Governor GoodSmile Granholm (big Democrat and national party leader) of my state. She traveled in a combination of personal expense, National Governors Association (NGA) expense and federal (State)/military (DOD) expense… so, on the latter funding, you did partly pay for her trip –along with all the other US taxpayers.
Governors Romney, Blunt and Schweitzer were part of the same program out of the NGA, US State Dept and DOD… I don’t know if Gov Romney spent any Massachusetts’ govt funds but the intention of the program is to insure that doesn’t happen –that’s why the NGA takes care of it and manages those visits from stateside to wherever military transit takes over. Our Governor spent 14 hrs in an unheated, seriously underfurnished c-130 transit plane on her trip. Michigan residents saw one –that’s a number best demonstrated by holding up your index finger, raj baby– one picture of her with a contingent of Michigan NG troops. “Political opportunism” or just being a patriot and –unlike you– supporting our troops out of a moral obligation? I think the latter.
So raj baby, time to take your medicine and posit an apology to the readers here who thought you were speaking out of knowledge, rather than out of the top of your hat.
Say it with me, raj baby, like they do in Catholic confesionals… “Forgive me readers, for I have sinned… it has been a long time since I’ve admitted any mistake about anything I’ve ever said or written.” LOL
raj baby writes: “…pope der Ratzinger (the Nazi coward).”
Wow, let me guess: You’re actually trying to push GrampaGryph off the page as the leading religious bigot? Raj baby, it’s amazing the level of hate and bitterness you have given the tiny brain and empty soul. Not only is the Pope a coward in your eyes, he’s also a Nazi. Does this all stem from the fact that you secretly covet his red Prada slippers? Or is it that drag queen envy of the fabulous garments he wears?
Tiny brain and empty soul: you ARE the poster boi for the effete GayLeft.
ND30– The issue isn’t whether the people were outraged or not. The issue is whether those outraged conservatives at Rockford College were “tolerant of left-wing commencement speakers” and what this incident said about Dan’s claim that “we just don’t hear of conservatives protesting such speakers”.
Donahue at Rockford is just one example of how Dan got it wrong. Why don’t you talk about that, rather than trying to excuse bad behavior?
No, Dan, I think it’s simply that we conservative students are more classy.
Bla…. not at Rockford College, you’re not.
The issue isn’t whether the people were outraged or not..
Another issue change — just like the one when your ravings about the University of Texas were exposed as blatantly false, just like the one when your “Yale cite” was shown to have been theoretical, and NOW when a liberal directly insults an audience and its members.
Perhaps if you “change the issue” enough, you might actually find a way in which you can be correct. But unfortunately, on the original issue on which we started, you’ve been proven not only patently false, but deliberately deceptive in misquoting and misrepresenting information.
NDXXX writes: “But unfortunately, on the original issue on which we started, you’ve (ed., meaning Anonie-non) been proven not only patently false, but deliberately deceptive in misquoting and misrepresenting information.”
You find that surprising, NDXXX?
Anonie-non is just doing what its been taught. Anonie-non comes from a segment of the population that learned it’s “truthful tricks” from watching the MSM harness truth and subvert it for political gain at nearly every turn in the last 30 years.
Deception in the pursuit of debate points is perfectly ok for Anonie-non, raj baby, Kevin and a few of the others –some of whom are now gone from this blog –thank the Lord.
Mike Al-Moor thinks it is. So does Al-Gore.
rwp, I have a evening prayer that I say at bedtime… “Please sweet Lord, let it be Al Gore for the Democrats in 2008. With Mickey Moore in at the #2 spot. Please Lord, oh please.”
Even better would be Dennis Kucinich.
prrrfhht. OK, now YOU owe me a new keyboard.