Knocking On Freedom's Door

Years ago, after the forces of separation had their sorry butts kicked (barely) during that idiotic referendum armed a duplictous question, former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau blamed the defeat on "money and the ethnics."

Damn straight it was. The next day, a friend on my street and hopeless separatist romantic rationalized it this way: "It's true but he shouldn't have said it."

I thought about the brilliant and insightful Parizeau assessment after hearing the banal and ignorant comments of journalist Helen Thomas.

Wanna hear? Ok.

She said Jews from Israeil should go back to Germany or Poland.

Strange.

What about Hungary? Russia? Italy? Why did she choose those two countries? They, after all, just happen to be the two places where many atrocities against Jews took place during WWII. And I never knew Jews originally came from those places. To be honest, I can't keep up with how many times they've been kicked out of countries and suffered pogroms.

Look, all this stuff is par for the course. We the public love this shit. Heck, I'm writing about aren't I? Trying to pick who says more dumber things between the right and left is pointless. It's bound to go nowhere. That the left lauds her as a real joutnalist for speaking her mind is not surprising. Yet, they go batshit over Anne Coulter.

Rather than rip apart her ignorant remark (as they would if Rush Limbaugh had said it. Imagine if he said "blacks should all go back to Nigeria. I'll let you digest on that one. For the record, Limbaugh has never said something as vile as this) they choose to, well, set up strawmen.

Enter Pat Buchanan. Apparently, it's more important to point out the other side does it too! Next thing you know, the threads are not analyzing her comments but how racist Buchanan is. Mission accomplished and off they go frolicking under the sun. I'll tell you one thing, if I was in a class with that professor I'd drop the course in a jiffy. The article stinks too much of Parizeau for me even if the intent was harmless.

In any event, it's wrong to compare the two because she was a member of the White House Press Corps.
She's "supposed" to be held to a higher standard. You know, objective reporting and all that crap. Buchanan is a commentator. Like the douche writing this post.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have a right to speak about her opinions. However, she showed poor judgement, if not outright ignorance, and it makes you wonder about her reporting in the past.
Also, it makes no difference she's from Lebanon. Ironically, while much is made of deaths caused by Israel, little discussion faces the fact that Arabs too have murdered the Christian Lebanese. Moreover, Arabs have done very little to help the Palestinians. So they ain't exactly pristine in their role in all this. Of course, no one ever demands Arabs give back lands they took from various tribes. No one seems to mind that at the same time Israel was created Jordan and 20 some odd other Arab countries were born as well.

Thomas was right to be condemned. I won't bother deconstructing her assertion. It should be self-evident. But I don't feel she had to resign. I felt that way about Don Imus too way back when. Talk about building a career in a lifetime and losing it in a day. Next time, people in position of communicative power should think twice before opening their traps.

The truth is plenty of people hold a "go back whence you came" view. The beauty about freedom is this stuff always comes to the surface and liberty of free thought and will exposes it for us to see. It's the best way to keep us honest and moving forward.