Why do reporters allow Republican candidates to get away with palling around with bigots?
Steve Benen is right: if Jeremiah Wright had a talk show and a Democratic candidate appeared on it, there would be an unholy fuss. But it’s routine for Republican candidates - not just Mike Huckabee - to go on the air with people far, far nastier than Jeremiah Wright ever dreamed of being. Bryan Fischer has suggested that all Muslims be deported unless they convert to Christianity and who refers to gays as “Nancy boys.”
In addition to running his hate-talk show, Fischer is the “Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy” at Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association. AFA is one of the sponsors of the annual “Values Voter Summit,” which routinely draws a Who’s Who of Republican candidates.
And yet I’ve never heard a reporter challenge any Republican candidate for “palling around” with lunatic bigots.
This has been another edition of It’s All OK If You’re A Republican.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
IAOIYAR, but what am I?
Seriously, nothing breeds cynicism like ignorance. See current Republican proposals to “balance the budget” by cutting public sector worker compensation, while pretending it bothers them. Even though for decades they’ve been attacking both unions and government as evil. The recession has truly been a gift to them.
Eli: The recession has been a gift to the GOP and they gave it to themselves.
In Spain we did that with jews and ‘mudejares’ (muslims living under christian kings) and then to ‘moriscos’ (descendents of mudejares that had been converted under menace). It did us no good. We lost our financial elites and most of the best artisans we had.