Hypocrisies

This blogger had the bad judgment to get nasty with Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom, and apparently she drew upon herself the wrath of the Right Blogosphere, and now she’s sorry. See Kathy Kattenburg at Liberty Street for more background.

Maybe the first rule of blogging should be, Don’t dish out what you aren’t ready to get back tenfold.

Anyway, the blogger in question, Deb Frisch, has been identified by the Right as a “liberal,” and Confederate Yankee asks,

When a liberal blogger threaten child sex abuse and murder, what response do we get from prominent liberal blogs?

*crickets*

Not one post.

Nothing from Kos, or Atrios, silence from Raw Story, AMERICAblog, and MyDD.

Nothing from me, either, as I never heard of Deb Frisch. If she said what is claimed she said, then she’s really awful and should be ashamed of herself. But I refuse to be collectively lumped together with or held accountable for people I’ve never heard of.

Perhaps the Yankee expects liberal bloggers to apologize for the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.

I’d like to establish a “blogroll” rule. If someone on my blogroll writes something inexcusably nasty, then you can lump me together with or expect me to apologize for what that blogger wrote. Otherwise — go to hell. [Update: Please pass this on to Right Wing Nut House, OK?]

See also Jeralyn at TalkLeft and Retardo at Sadly, No.

Update: Tbogg.

Update update: Although we lefties are being slammed for not apologizing for remarks made by someone we never heard of on a blog few of us ever read, Michelle Malkin refuses to express even a flicker of regret for Denice Denton’s suicide. Of course, as she says, Malkin didn’t kill Denice Denton. We don’t know how much of a factor, if any, Malkin’s targeting of Denton was in Denton’s decision to kill herself. However, we don’t know is not the same as no responsibility whatsoever. It’s we don’t know. Meaning, it may have been a factor.

Even if Malkin sincerely believes she had no part in the suicide, a decent person would have written something along the lines of “This individual I blogged about a couple of months ago has killed herself, and even though I disagreed with what this woman was doing I extend my condolences to her friends and family.” That’s, like, the minimum amout of regret a civilized and mature person would express under the circumstances. It’s the least Malkin ought to have done. And, of course, she doesn’t do that. She just flies into a big snit because people are mean to her.

35 thoughts on “Hypocrisies

  1. Do the rightie blogofascists REALLY want to make THIS person their victim to justify their behavior from last weekend?

    Honest I am a read-o- holic…when it comes to blogs, politics and all things news related and I have never heard of the nutty blogger in question….I hope she will do herself a favor and seek some help before she tries to blog anymore.

    As for this Goldstein fellow….the stuff he spews is what the right is all about… his talk of slapping someone in the face with his tiny penis (and that is the polite stuff) makes him a poor writer with nothing of substance to say, not someone worthy of a threat…his shock type style is a joke worthy of pity…if the right wishes to hold HIM up as their victim to their “upstanding christian readers” I hope they disclose what filth he spews…

    I think if both sides (right and left) were wise they would BOTH step away from these 2 bloggers and let them be toxic to each other out of the public view.Both of them should be cast out by seroius bloggers on BOTH SIDES….Thank you Maha for setting the record straight and pointing this out in full to your readers.

  2. No apologies necessary. Perhaps something better than a half assed condemnation of someone threatening sexual harm to a child might be in order.

    But hey! None of your business, right?

  3. Rick,

    What didn’t you understand about “she’s really awful and should be ashamed of herself” The way I understood this post was that all blogsites are not responsible for what other people say. What part of that didn’t you get? What would satisfy you – the first born of any left-leaning blogger?

  4. Boy, I just love when the right finds some lunatic saying something ridiculous and DEMANDS that everyone to the left of Bill Kristol apologize for something someone we have never heard of said on a blog somewhere on the internet that we never read. Conservatives, by this logic, should be perpetually apologizing for the homicidal ravings of their most mainstream media figures, from Coulter to Limbaugh to Falwell to Malkin etc. etc. But no, drop everything, some moron said something somewhere and you better be tolerant and apologize!
    We’re supposed to be the party that takes all the crap for defending free speech. Conservatives heap scorn on us for defending unpopular speech – even when it’s imaginary, like flagburning.. Can’t we just say this is someone being an idiot but exercising free speech and leave it at that? No, of course not. I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like it was vile and should be condemned. The least of us must demonstrate more integrity than the best of them. But it would be much easier to do it their way. I don’t think Malkin or Horowitz lose any sleep when their troops send death threats to their targets-of-the-week.

  5. Ah, Ricky…First you have to read and understand that no threat was communicated in spite of what you were told, but couldn’t figure out for yourself.. It seems that the ConflateateYankee and other shit-stirrers are trying to rally a lynch mob of dolts to increase their blog traffic. This whole episode is just filler and distraction..If you want to sink your teeth into a story with substance..go chasing after the senseless deaths of the 3 American servicemen who died for Bush’s lies in Iraq today..

  6. Amen to what Zeus and Cody said.

    And I will add this:

    You and most of the other right-wing bloggers posting on Deb Frisch have spent the entire day hurling invective at left-wing bloggers for not immediately posting condemnations of someone we never heard of, and you somehow expect that this approach is going to win us over.

    You and most of the other right-wing bloggers posting on Deb Frisch have spent the entire day telling everyone on the left side of the blogosphere that Deb Frisch threatened Jeff Goldstein’s child and made vile sexual comments about Jeff’s child, his wife, and Jeff himself *because* she is a leftist — that the horrible things she said are an intrinsic part of what it means to be a leftist, and that this is what left-wing philosophy is all about…. And you actually, truly expect, after you have made Deb Frisch a symbol for left-wing thought instead of concluding that she is one, single, individual person who has no sense of what is right and wrong to say, that you have the right to tell us we should be condemning Frisch in public, in private, and in every way possible.

    Human beings don’t work that way, Rick. Wake up and smell the coffee. Get hooked up to the reality machine.

    Or, put another way: Rick Moran, you are an idiot, a moron, and a fool for thinking you can blame all of us for what one person did, and then get our support. Like Maha said: Go to hell.

  7. And Rick Moran’s two year old hasn’t even been here to apologize for Daddy’s behavior. Hmmph. What are conservative kids coming to these days?

  8. This from the free republic comments last weekend: A rightie nutjob suggesting that the readers should find out where New York Times employees send their children to school and “alert the child molestors”:

    “Freepers have to expose these clowns .Work up some photos of their homes, mistresses’ apartments,their routes to work, maybe where their children attend day school.Alert all the sexual preditors in the neighborhood(their names and photos are now readily available on line thanks to the do-gooders)ect.The government cannot preform this task or the whitehouse would be accused of Donald Segretti’s dirty tricks or Gordon Liddy’s blackops(wetops?).Where is MiaT when we need her?Call the PAJAMAHADEEN to muster!”

    There are calls for folks to “grab the golden ring” telling them this was their shot at fame!…a freelance photographers home phone number and address put out ….all over a photograph of a couple vacation homes, taken with permission…

    The right lost the right to talk to me about outrage last weekend…The threat could not have been clearer from rightie blogs, and on idependence weekend no less.One stupid womans comments pale compared to the DIRECT threat issued by blogs on the right last week.Shame on you looking for outrage NOW when you had a full week to be outraged against your own and said NOTHING.Don’t try to justify last weekends actions by pointing to one stupid womans comments(notice she didn’t call her readers to hunt the child in question down the way the right called for any child of any New York Times employee to be)You make me sick…

    I third Maha…Go to hell!

  9. aside from the obvious (who the hell is deb frisch?), i would submit that until goldstein, malkin, reynolds, coulter, limbaugh, hannity, o’reilly, et al., apologize for the christian identiy movement and the guys who dragged james bird behind a pickup truck and the guys who smashed in matthew shepard’s head, then we’ll talk.

    i agree w/maha, and would extrapoloate that to, exactly how many blogrolls did the hardly-ever-right wing check to see which ones contain links to deb’s blog? and how many do?

  10. This busines of demanding that someone’s comments be condemned by everyone on the left is a tactic that the righties have developed to utilize their near-monopoly on modern media to make it appear to the average rube in TV Land that all left-leaning folks are extremists who espouse violent and/or bizarre claims. It’s another method of bringing our discourse down the the level of junior-high name-calling, and is no different than watching a bunch of 7th graders ganging up on anybody they don’t like.

    The first rightie i saw really develop this technique was Sean Hannity, who would go out of his way to interrupt a liberal guest with some completely irrelevant comment by another virtually unknown liberal, (usually one that actually was extereme or just dumb in some way), and demand that the person condemn the comment and denounce this person immediately. It usually has the effect of catching the guest off-guard, and their temporary confusion is made to look like evasiveness when Hannity repeats the demand loudly over and over as the guest tries to figure out what Hannity is asking. It is always a non-sequitor of some kind and never has anything to do with what the guest is there to discuss.

    It’s simply a tactic, another among many by righties, to try to win arguments in the minds of the rubes by turning the media into a big junior-high playground, where the popular kids all know Bush is best, and only the nerds disagree with anything the gang thinks or says.

    It’s amazingly effective among right-wingers, and leaves adults who actually want to discuss the realities and complexities (and threats to our way of life) standing with our mouths agape at the absurdity being presented, while the Hannities and Limbaughs etc etc etc, who have spent their adult lives mastering 7th grade playground tactics, win over the idjits.

    Fortunately they never win over anyone with a brain, and only manage to pull the cult members in a little tighter with each and every attack they launch on liberal/rational thought. Unfortunately they’re a dangerous, angry, and potentially violent 20%-30% of Americans, therefore we’re stuck having to deal with them.

    Recent events have left me feeling like we’re really up against a detrmined effort to subvert the American way of life, and the anger with which they’ve begun to go after, for instance the NY Times, makes it clear they’re playing for keeps. I foresee a watering of the Tree of Liberty coming soon if they persist in their attack on our freedoms. If push comes to shove they’re going to find the vast majority of Americans unwilling to surrender our freedoms to this freakshow band of rednecks.

    These adolescent tactics (that prevent any real dialogue, and succeed in convincing the poor confused folks under their cult-spell that their awesome leaders like Sean Hannity and Michele Malevolant are brilliant orators and thinkers who dominate liberals who try to come up against them on FOXNews) are going to be rendered impotent if they ever try to move their bizarre cult off the TV and computer screens and into our homes. America will never allow these freaks to impose their fascist hypocrisy on our lives.

    I’ll continue to ignore their demands for condemnations and their faux outrage at statemnents made by random leftists–statements which pale in comparison to the genuinely sociopathic bile they spew all the time. These are people locked in a state of frustrated adolescence, and their anger and ignorance render them incapable of rational dialogue. I’m not sure how to deal with them yet, but to take anything they say seriously is to give them a degree of respect they can not earn.

  11. I have no problem agreeing with the wingers that Deb F’s comments were condemnable. I have never heard of her before this post, and I have never read the site in which she posted those ugly words. Mostly I never click on right-wing blog sites because the logic is so lame and the rhetoric is so juvenile and ugly.
    But, I did click on Rick Moran’s link above…..I could find nothing there about some winger commenter [thanks, justme, #8] being condemned for urging that child molesters be told where NYT’s folks kids go to school. I guess that, to Rick Moran, that kind of comment is not worth his and his ‘friends’ attention and outrage.

    Come to think of it, it may be that ugly rhetoric is so prevalent on rightie sites that is gets no notice [does a fish know it is in water?], but ugly rhetoric coming from a ‘leftie’ is so rare that it was a surprise gift to focus on with their selective highlighting mechanisms.

  12. “When a liberal blogger threaten [sic] child sex abuse and murder….” First, I can’t parse that sentence because it’s illiterate. Second, I have no idea what the blogger is talking about; I’m paying attention to the price of gasoline, the war in Iraq, the latest war funerals at home (Nebraska’s had three in two weeks), Sy Hersh’s latest article about insane plans for preemptive strikes on Iran. I worry first about sex abuse and murder in my neighborhood. I worry about the Catholic Church covering up sex abuse by the priesthood, while the Pope is in Spain condemning homosexuals.

    I’d recommend two things for bloggers of all political persuasions: first, write clearly; and second, write about things that matter.

  13. From the excerpts I’ve read, I’m not sure that Frisch threatened to harm or molest Goldstein’s child; rather, she may have speculated that Goldstein would harm or molest his child. However, I haven’t read the unedited version of what Frisch wrote so I don’t know for certain.

    I read a little of Frisch’s archives yesterday just to see if there was anything there worth defending, and I have to say she’s not someone I ever would have put on the blogroll here. She struck me as, um, not terribly bright or insightful, to say the least. I could have written a better blog when I was ten years old. That someone this limited could get any kind of academic job makes me think I should have gone to graduate school, after all.

  14. If you are as old as I am, you remember the ‘plumbers’ of the Nixon era. They were formed to plug leaks, because journalists were publish too much embarrassing stuff about the administration. Remember the Pentagon Papers, and the Supreme Court decision?

    But I digress. The plumbers specialized in dirty tricks during the campaign. Sometime I get a whiff that smells of the ‘plumbers’ dirty tricks.. updated to the Internet age.

    We are all denouncing Deb F. and disassociating. We should be asking (as Skippy did in comment 9) who is linked to this person? I would add: When did the site appear? Who has posted comments from her on known blogs? Though we have our share of wingnuts, it’s also possible she’s actually a he and a Rightie who posted to give the righties a platform.

    I wrote an article which was sparked by Barbara’s post ‘The Patients Are Running the Asylum’.

    http://nextamericanrevolution.org/2006/07/06/the-asylum.aspx2006/07/06/the-asylum.aspx

    I suggested that MOST bloggers of BOTH sides are reasonable and approachable in civilized discussion. Some conduct needs to be prohibited by the left and right in a self-enforced Code of Conduct. Instead of polarizing into 2 camps (Left and Right) we would exclude the wingnuts from civlizeded discourse. By not posting violent comments, not linking to proponents of unacceptable behavior

  15. Instead of polarizing into 2 camps (Left and Right) we would exclude the wingnuts from civlizeded discourse.

    You’re basically suggesting that we in the Left Blogosphere completely ignore everyone in the Right Blogosphere. Well, not everyone; I might be able to think of five or so moderately rightie bloggers who are capable of carrying on an intellectually honest discussion. But no more than that.

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  17. Many years ago, before the WWW was a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye, some of us on USENET were discussing the “five sigma effect.” (“Sigma” means “one standard deviation” in stat-land.) This is the simple statistical phenomenon that the larger a population, the more likely that someone five sigmas from the mean would be part of it. As the net grew, we reasoned, the odds of truly malevolent and disturbed people participating would grow to near certainty.

    With three-quarters of a billion people or more now on-line, we’re going to get six and even seven sigmas. Axe murders. Nobel prize winners. Bottom-feeders and illustrious individuals of every stripe.

    I’m not going to apologize for five-sigma folks just because they claim a few things in common with me. There simply aren’t enough hours in a day.

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  21. Is it me?.. How come I can’t see the threats..I can see some rather distasteful comments, but I don’t see a threat expressed or implied. The Captian sees them, the Confederate cub reporter sees them, but I’m blind to them…why?

  22. As the husband of one of your regular readers I read your blog “over the shoulder” everyday….this is the first time I have ever felt the need to comment but this really is annoying behavior from the righties and it is just a lot of scratching in the cat box to cover the big turd from last weekend.It won’t work and the righties should know you can’t put toothpaste back into the tube.Nothing one unknown(hmmmm) blogger said compares to the all out calls from the blogs on the right to hunt down New York times employees kids and “grab for the gold ring!”
    Also I wonder what is with a guy who is afraid of a womans words and ADMITS it in public.Now I am a big biker guy so maybe I don’t understand hiding under the bed in fear of a woman who is talking(unless it is the MRS).I think he must be lacking something as a man if he can not handle the security of his family from a womans words…where I come from that seems a bit wimpy really.
    If this person felt she made a valid threat the police should have been called and she should have been charged with a crime, since that has failed to happen one has to wonder what the rest of the story is.Did he make threats also? Was he laughed out of the police station?Did her speech not meet the standard of a threat legally?Wouldn’t this be the way to go rather than admit you were a wimp to everyone on the internet?
    Notice they don’t let you see the whole story,,,the context of the entire conversation….it seems really weak at best and like comments in bad taste at worst from what I have seen.And certainly in no poorer taste then goldstein who panders to the lowest form of society by telling them how he would slap his nemesis in the face with his tiny organ.. when will the right be starting a “we are sorry” petition for the poor writing skills of one of their own?
    And speaking of goldstein ,Maha could you explain to us what a denial of service attack is?(for those of us far less savvy) Does it have anything to do with content?
    I can’t believe the right wants to hold goldstein up as the rightie posterboy/victim.He really shows what the GOP is all about and it aint pretty.Focus on the family will be so proud he is on their team!
    I have to agree after last weekend and the actions of the blogs on the right , all hope the Gop ever had of using blogs to help in the upcoming elections was lost. Any politician who gets the “support” of these bloggers can just look for work in another field.What politician wants the support of extemist blogs who call for hunting down New York times Employees and their families?A polictician with his own lynch mob, how nice!
    The mistake this unknown blogger made to start with was trying to engage in a conversation with someone like goldstein in the first place.You cannot carry on a conversation with someone at that level.Tyring to reach across the aisle is one thing but reaching into the gutter is another.If this blogger thought she could reach common ground with his kind she should raise her standard. The very most you can hope for in dealing with his type is walk away and hope you don’t get any on your shoes.
    And that is my Advice to bloggers on BOTH sides ..STEP AWAY FROM THESE 2 BLOGGERS before you get any on your shoes..Thanks for a great blog Maha…I really enjoy reading your work!

  23. Think 9/11 and the reality of millions of Arabs dancing in the street. Their joy at our losses compound the losses and display a measurable lack of humanity. Indeed, one could almost make a list of the uncivilized nations of the world by listing those countries wherein there were demonstrations of joy over such tragedy.

    Now we have someone that has issued a threat. A despicable threat against the child of someone she disagrees with. Any civilized person would react to this threat with repugness. But what if this person is a member of your fraternity?

    Therein lies the problem. When a wild eyed fanatic blows up an abortion clinic the condemnations from the Christian community are immediate. Will the Left also be quick to denounce the barbaric actions of its own?

  24. Sorry, Brad….we don’t own her. Whoever she is, she is now owned by the righties for their purpose of making straw-person generalities. Please provide links to the ‘millions of Arabs dancing in the street’ story you assert. Also, please acknowledge directly what Maha and posters here have said about this woman’s words. And, if you dare to be courageous, please comment on the ‘barbaric actions’ of wingers exhorting the alerting of child molesters to the whereabouts of children belonging to NYT’s employees.

  25. Had he the resources to pay for a $10.00 a month plan he might have survived the traffic that his wimping generated.

    Is that the problem? These days, $10 a month can get you a whole lotta bandwidth. I’m not even paying that much, and I get, like, a lot. Some number in the gigabytes.

  26. But what if this person is a member of your fraternity?

    But, son, she ain’t. That’s the point. Everybody agrees that what she said was real nasty, but she ain’t one o’ our’n. That was the point of the post you were dumb enough to comment on without actually reading first.

    And since commenting without reading posts is a hangin’ offense in these parts, buckaroo, say hi to your buddies in the twit filter.

  27. Dude, righties? If you want the rest of us to stand up and condemn what may or may not have even been said by some chick with a blog in AZ? Then I demand you apologize, for starters, for every racist thing La Malkin has ever said, for every threat to the physical person of a liberal blogger that any crazy guy with a keyboard has ever made, for every time some rightie blogger called a feminist blogger a whore. Eh? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

    Deb Frisch is like that girl at the party that no one invited, who got too drunk and started saying obscene things. Everyone in attendance kind of looks around and wonders who invited her, and then they proceed to ignore her because they don’t want to applaud her behavior by giving her attention.

    Y’all hate Deb Frisch so much? Her traffic is through the roof. Congrats for making her blog successful! Here’s a cookie.

  28. Frisch is a liberal – a lefty. She’s a nitwit and a lot of other things too, but she’s in the liberal camp. Either liberals tolerate her bad behavior and therefore are soiled by the association, or they eschew her presence and disavow her acts. What I read here is a lot of excuses, whining, and attempts to blame the right for bad behavior from one on the left. Typical for lefties, based on my observations.

  29. So, Michael, exactly what would you have us do? I wrote in the post above that “If she [Frisch] said what is claimed she said, then she’s really awful and should be ashamed of herself.” A great many other liberal bloggers have written that what Frisch wrote was inexcusable. But I guess that’s not good enough.

    You say we should “eschew her presence” — dude, she’s never been “present” in the political Left Blogosphere to “eschew.” She’s a nobody. None of us ever heard of her before Thursday. As acknowledged by rightie blogger The Ugly American in the comments to another post, Frisch was getting about 16 – 35 site visits per day before last Thursday. This woman may call herself a “liberal,” but she has no standing whatsoever in the community of liberal bloggers who link to each other in virtual Liberal Bloggerland. Nor has she ever participated in that community, as far as I know.

    We cannot be soiled by association with her, because we have never associated with her. Got that?

    Although she may be a self-identified “liberal,” I spent some time reading through her archives the other day and found more stuff that I disagreed with than the other way around. She’s basically just a whackjob.

    What I read here is a lot of excuses, whining, and attempts to blame the right for bad behavior from one on the left.

    You didn’t even read my post or most of the other comments, did you?

    Typical for lefties, based on my observations.

    As soon as you apologize for the right wingers who make obscene phone calls to me every time I piss them off, you have a right to be holier than thou. Until then — you’re outtahere.

  30. Maybe the first rule of blogging should be, Don’t dish out what you aren’t ready to get back tenfold.

    Jeff just got his tenfold, then. He’s been dishing it for years.

    And modus potus is right. Although at least the web makes it possible for five-sigma folks to find each other for everlasting love. And Ms Frisch and Goldstein are certainly cut from the same cloth.

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