TheAgitator.com
Ted Rall: Idiot.
Wednesday, October 30th, 2002What a fucking moron. Pardon the language. But there are some circumstances in which only four letter words will suffice.
Here’s the feedback form for Yahoo!’s opinion syndicate. Write and tell them it’s time to drop Ted Rall’s column.
Yes, I believe “fucking moron” is pretty much the only fitting description.
Let me get this straight. Bush’s people sabotaged the plane in order to eliminate an extreme socialist democrat that was beatable in the upcoming election. The likely replacement would be a wildly popular former senator, vice-president, and presidential nominee who would not have to engage in a debate, let alone campaign against his opponent, and could emerge victorious simply because “that’s the way Paul would want it”?!?!?!?!
If anyone stands to gain from this…. well, it’s certainly not Bush.
If this asshole wants to accuse somebody of sabotaging the plane, how about Daschle, he was practically picking through the wrekage for Wellstone’s war chest.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one, Radley. Not the part where you accuse Rall of being a f***ing moron (he is), but the part where you make a call to arms to silence him and his idiot conspiracy theory. Doesn’t that go against the principles of free speech and free press? Yes, I know that in a strict constructionist way of thinking, those protections are from the government coming down on speech and the press, but here you are actually trying to get a fellow journalist fired from a job, just for giving a half-baked opinion in print. Not very libertarian way to go about rational dissent, if you ask me…
Joe,
I respectfully disagree. Rall has freedom of speech, it’s an op/ed and he may write or say pretty much anything he wants. We also have the same freedom, and that includes the right to let his employer know how we feel. Yahoo is under no obligation (other than maybe a contract with Rall) to print his crap, especially when to do so could have a negative impact on their reputation.
Nobody is trying to “silence” Rall and his conspiracy theory. He is free to tell it to anyone who will listen. If Yahoo wants to print it, that’s a business decision on their part. My feeling is that it is more against libertarain principles to say that Yahoo has a responsibility to print anything Rall wants to say…. only the Soviet Constitution guarantees the right to a printing press.
Here!!! Here!!!
The Right to Free Speech includes the right to say (or type) that something is unfit to be said or printed.
After Ron Brown’s death I saw several places theories that Clinton was behind it. Hell, Rush probably had a piece about it. I somehow doubt the torches and pitchforks were out for that one.
Joe and Derek-
To say that Radley is going against libertarian ideals by trying to have him thrown off Yahoo is incorrect. On the contrary, in the free market that a libertarian would encourage, response from readers is the appropriate way to have him removed. If Yahoo’s patrons decide that they don’t like what Ted Rall has to say, then it’s smart business for Yahoo to remove them from their list of contributers or face a decline in the number of readers. This is NO different then the public influence used to have the idiot radio DJ in Arizona fired for his inappropriate prank.
I’ll fight for your right to say something, but I won’t make Yahoo print it!
Listen, you can do whatever you feel is right regarding Ted Rall’s editorial, and I say more power to ya. Write to Yahoo, write your congressman, hell, write the lyrics to the theme song from “Barney Miller”… I just think it was bad form for Radley to cut a guy off at the knees like that, considering that FoxNews pays him to do essentially the same thing Ted Rall is doing over at Yahoo. I’ve never seen William F. Buckley ask his readers to call or write the New York Times and demand that they can Maureen Dowd’s column, just because Buckley happens to disagree on an issue Dowd wrote about (Hey, maybe THAT’S the mysterious “Buckley” everyone was asking Radley about the other night!).
I just think that there are better ways to discuss this intelligently than starting a letter writing campaign against a fellow journalist who might be a little addled from sniffing the Sharpies he uses to draw his cartoon. If Rall was using his column for irresponsible and malicious personal attacks, then I might agree with Radley’s call for his head (e.g. those morons in Pheonix with Darryl Kyle’s widow). But writing a column dealing with a whacked-out conspiracy theory on Republicrats offing each other with civil aeronautics is no better or worse than writing a column about eradicating the EPA because it takes two flushes with the new, federally mandated toilets. It’s stories like these that make the Op/Ed page more than just boring birdcage lining, and even if we totally disagree with a particular columnist on some crazy issue like this or the toilets, it would be a sad day if we couldn’t disagree with Rall and his ilk due to some heat-of-the-moment letter-writing campaign.
Joe,
This is the way markets work. If we don’t believe in government regulation and interference (in this case, censorship), then we have to make our voices heard as consumers.
Yes, what I do for Fox is much the same as what Rall does for Universal. But if I wrote a ridiculous column accusing the president of murder, shouldn’t Fox fire me? Or not run the column? And if they didn’t fire me, and did run the column, and you’re a Fox consumer, and what I’d written turned you off as a consumer, would there be anything wrong with you telling Fox that the Fox website is a less attractive product so long as they’re running the crap written by that idiot Radley Balko?
If I’d asked you all to write the FCC telling them to fine Yahoo! for running Rall’s column, you’d have a point. But simply asking Yahoo! to deliver a non-hysterical product, I think, is perfectly consistent with free-thinking philosophy.
Okay, let’s say that some obscure columnist writes a story about the blatant and egregious criminal activity that is going on during a political campaign, either perpetuated by a high-calibre politician or his staff and advisors. This columnist is kind of a whack-job, and nobody in their right mind would buy into his crazy conspiracy theory. In fact, several people write in to his bosses and demand this columnist be fired or they will get their news somewhere else, or worse yet, take their almighty advertising dollar to a rival media outlet that doesn’t publish such drivel. Thankfully, cooler heads prevail, and his bosses give him the benefit of the doubt and encourage him to go deeper into the story, see what else can be found. Come to find out, he wasn’t too far off target. His writing forever changes the way politics are handled in this country, and the little crazy conspiracy story topples a corrupt government.
Now, I’m not saying that Ted Rall is the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein, Nor would I be so irresponsible to suggest that this story even comes close being akin to Watergate; but I really wonder where we would be right now if market forces would have influenced The Washington Post to drop the Watergate Hotel burglary conspiracy and printed only what the most vociferous opponents of Woodward and Bernstein wanted to read.
I believe the difference is that Woodward and Bernstein carefully researched and documented their story. So, the story stood up to scrutiny and boosted WaPo’s credibility.
Ted Rall’s piece seems to be nothing more than a speculative conspiracy piece that serves to damage Yahoo’s cred.
I don’t see anything wrong with the market letting Yahoo! know that this smacks more of tabloid fodder than journalism. But at that point it’s up to Yahoo! as to what they want to do about it.
I assume that they will do whatever results in the most readership. As long as more people dial them up to see the latest moronic op-ed than people who are turned off by moronic op-eds, the advertisers will follow.
And as much as the piece pissed me off, I still enjoyed reading it. I’ll probably bookmark Rall’s page just to see what inane theories he has next week. And that’s why Yahoo will keep ‘em.
Jimmy is absolutely right. Let’s say Ted’s next column reads like this:
“Joe Sims stands up for me. Could it be that he is behind the plan crashes that killed Mel Carnahan and Sen. Wellstone? The theory seems to make some sense. Why would Joe stand up for me? Perhaps to draw the attention of the investigation towards the Republicans and George Bush and away from himself. Etc…”
Ted’s actual published ‘column’ is the same sort of rampant speculation. It is not grounded in any facts. The only reason you are defending him is because it is of a person we are used to seeing in the news. Put someone in there for the first time and irresponsible journalism, put in the President and it is just advancing a theory that may or may not be true? That doesn’t work. I don’t think anyone is complaining because they don’t like what he has to say (although my guess is they don’t), they are complaining because he has no basis of fact to say what he is saying and no good can come of advancing his theory unless he has something to back it up.
Each of us have the right in this nation to express our ideas, even ididotic ideas.
Each of us also has a RESPONSIBILITY to publically declare those ideas idiotic when the facts support that conclusion.
Thank you for taking that responsibility seriously, Radley.
Bryan,
I’m in awe of your powers of extra-sensory perception. Your ability to discern that I’m ONLY defending Rall because he is writing about President Bush is amazing. Are you the person that Miss Cleo calls when she needs psychic help? Let me restate this, and make it as clear as I can: I am not defending what Rall had to say about Bush or his ‘gang of thugs’, verifiable or not (it’s immaterial to me, mostly because he’s an idiot and normally not worth this much of my time); I am defending his right to say whatever he wants to say about a public person and Yahoo’s right to publish it, without fear of those who disagree with them calling for his career.
As a corrolary, I am also defending my position that, as a journalist, even Radley could be accused of similar offenses as Rall is being accused of here, if one were so inclined (which I think Radley would stipulate to; I’ve read some of the responses to his columns). We all like Radley, and think he’s a good, responsible journalist, so I doubt that anybody reading this blog would ever think to do such a thing. But surely there are others out there in the universe who find Radley to be an utter moron, and those people might wish that he wouldn’t waste bandwidth on his lame rantings, and by gum, they’re gonna do something about it — they’re gonna get him fired. It’s not important WHAT Radley said to rile the masses, only that he had the temerity to say it, and that Fox had the bad taste to print it. Do you see where I’m going with this? Do I need to make it more simple? Is it clear here that I am NOT slamming Radley? I don’t want this conceptual argument to get off point with irrelevant specifics, so I’m just making sure you’re following me.
Ted Rall could write a column about me, making irresponsible claims such as those you stated, and the minute it is published, I would sue him and his publisher for libel. I am not a holder of public office, nor am I a celebrity or any of the other unfortunate classes of people where it’s legally permissible to defame them in print. All of this is covered in Journalism 101. It’s not fair, but that’s the idea behind protected and unprotected speech. If you don’t want the glare of the spotlight to burn you, then you stay off the stage. Yahoo’s legal department is not so stupid as to allow him to accuse an ordinary private citizen of such nonsense, and they would do whatever it took to save Rall from his own idiocy. I can’t see where that example you gave is of any benefit, seeing that it’s a position that the media has taken since Homer wrote all those lies and fabrications in The Iliad. But all of that is off the subject.
Is Rall an idiot? Yes, most likely. Does he have an irrational hatred of the President, which he’s using to expliot every chance he gets? Probably, and if I could get paid for my irrational beliefs, I would exploit them as well. Is Yahoo being hurt by all of this? I doubt it, since Rall is not writing about private citizenry they’re legally covered, and from a revenue standpoint, a controversial Op/Ed piece is always preferable to an Op/Ed piece that nobody reads. If Yahoo gains more readers than it had before this story came out, due to the publicity of a emotional and irrational letter-writing campaign, would they care if Rall is wrong, even if it gives them the appearance of not being credible? As far as Yahoo’s credibility, let’s not forget that THIS IS THE INTERNET, NOT THE NEW YORK TIMES! I have an easier time believing that ‘Star Wars’ really happend long ago in a galaxy far, far away than I do uncritically believing anything I read online or see on TV news channels.
So, Bryan, to sum it all up, in the most simplistic terms for those that aren’t following my rationale (not you, though; I can tell by using **MY** ESP that you are a reasonable and intelligent person, who doesn’t get lost in semantics): Rall is an idiot that wrote a potentially slanderous piece on the President, IF Bush and his cronies were not in the public eye. He is getting publicity for his sideshow freak of a column all over the internet, which in turn draws readers to Yahoo. Because advertising dollars are value-blind (meaning that bad publicity is still good publicity), this brings in more ad revenue to Yahoo (who charge advertisers by the number of times their ads are viewed), so they’re going to keep Rall because he’s a cash cow. Calling for his job is an irrational response to this situation, and it is especially irrational coming from a fellow columnist who, under other circumstances, could be the one under the gun. The best way to silence Rall is to ignore him, not give him ammo to further his birth defect of a column. To believe otherwise is naive; to act otherwise would be intolerant.
Paul-
I could not agree with you more, I would not want any kind of formal, organized, or (God forbid) Goverment regulation to prevent people from speaking freely.
That freedom should include voicing to Yahoo, one’s opposition to what Yahoo is pushing. Since Yahoo has a voluntary following, they get to decide what they push, and I will decide if I want to tune in.
I think the very fact that opposing views, even accusations of conspiracy and expletive descriptions, are what give us strength intellectually. What I learn from people who oppose my views I can only learn from people who oppose my views. And I am usually egotistical enough to strengthen my position by considering their opposition. More importantly if they are correct, I would rather be corrected than incorrect. Oops now I am talking about judgmental decions on right and wrong. I hope no one gets offended.
You can mock me all you want about having ESP but I’m not really sure about your point. Seems to me I did hit the nail on the head. My deduction was that you are only defending Ted because he was writing about the President. Yes, a public person. I thank you for your lesson libel but your only restating my original opinion on the situation. You are defending him (rather than bringing a lawsuit) because the false, unverified speculation in Mr. Rall’s column was about a public figure and therefore legal.
Maybe your new to this whole “libertarian” line of thinking but I’ll break it down for you – rather than depending on the government and laws to take care of us (such as with lawsuits for libel), many of us prefer to let ourselves defend ourselves. We’ll leave it to the market. If we see something that we disagree with, we can do one of two things: we can stop shopping there and they will lose or business (or traffic in this case) and we hope that eventually they will figure out why we left and fix the problem or we can call them, write them, or otherwise let them know what exactly it is that we disagree with and why they are losing our business. Hopefully this brings change about a little quicker and the market is able to more accurately reflect, well, the things it is suppose to.
I don’t know why you think just because what Rall did is not illegal (although there is a good chance it is since saying things false things and knowing them to be false is still libel, even against a public person. but I’m sure you knew that), why you think it is therefore okay? And if it is not okay, as a responsible market participant, why it is wrong to let the higher-ups know?
I like Ted Rall’s writings. He is a rare progressive voice in a wilderness of intolerant right-wing media propaganda. When most pundits are ready to passively toe the party line, he at least has the nerve to stand up and ask critical questions.
In response to the post that was put up on October 31, 2002, regarding lible and Mr. Rall-
I honestly cannot belive such fucking morons exists in this world. Before everyone stops reading, I realize that in this nation and under this constitution we have lunatics on BOTH sides of the political extreme who think that they are watching out for the American Pulic. However, for right or wrong, Rall has crossed the line and I pray to God that someone has the balls to make him pay. This issue that I am referring to is his latest political cartoon, showing his version of Mr. Tillman and how and why he entered the service. It is not for an urge to serve his country, as Tillman, his friends and family have all said is the reason that he enlisted; it is not for the adventure or the chance to see the world. Instead, he is in his football uniform at the recruiter’s office, asking if he will be able to “go kill arabs”. This is a quote from the cartoon, read it yourself if you want. While I understand the freedome of voice and expression, Rall has crossed the line into libel in his use of Tillman by name. Tillman did not want to be a public figure for doing what he felt was his duty, as evidenced by the fact that no one seemed to care about his enlisting and action until he had been killed. He is not a willfull public figure, and therefor if I was in Mr. Tillman’s family, I would be preparing a suit against Rall to send his career into the gutter. And I am excercising my freedom of voice in saying that I hope that Tillman’s brother pays Rall a visit soon. That is, after he gets back from his own tour of duty with the Rangers, doing the job that his brother died for. Rall, no words of this will probably ever reach you, but you should truely be ashamed of yourself and beg forgiveness from Tillamn’s family for bashing their son as you have.