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We shouldn't expect much from a media that spends more time reporting on petty, tawdry sex scandals than it does real stories like indefinite detention of American citizens accused of terrorism without a trial or even charges, the assassination of American citizens by their own government also without trials or due process, government corruption, income inequality, an identical march to war against Iran like the one against Iraq with the media repeating its role as fully complicit cheerleader, a justice system that heavily favors rich elites, and so on.
But that doesn't mean people shouldn't be disgusted and disappointed when things like this happen.
CPAC has become (or has it always been) a real cesspool of hate and anger for as long as I've known of the convention, sinking so low as to invite white nationalists (today's term people don't hang black people from trees or scream white power everywhere they go, but have changed little else nonetheless and in hilarious irony seem to hate Jews as much as they hate Hispanic immigrants) to speak at their conference this week, as though they were respected conservative thinkers.
They do that because they are.
But that's not the story. We already knew that stuff. When Ann Coulter called then-presidential candidate John Edwards a faggot at CPAC and the crowd erupted in applause and laughter, it should have been clear to everyone that we're dealing with a hate speech convention held for the benefit of society's lowest common denominators.
It's bad enough that the press doesn't treat that hate gathering for what it truly is. It's truly worse and almost beyond comprehension that they'd accept a journalism award at the convention from what ought to rank pretty highly on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups. Accuracy in Media gave an award to CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson for her reporting on the Fast and Furious DEA debacle. And I have no real problem with that, although I'd note that she's not getting a real journalism award for doing a good job. She's getting an award from a right-wing special interest group for reporting on one of their favorite stories of the year, nothing more.
But AIM is a lot uglier than that. These aren't partisan hacks, like the idiots running NewsBusters. AIM has a history of handing out awards and accolades to people who write stories that smear and denigrate gays in the worst, de-humanizing way possible. The way people do to excuse killing gays for being gay:
In 2010 AIM aggressively defended legislation in Uganda that "sought to impose the death penalty for a number of reasons, including being a 'serial offender' of the 'offense of homosexuality,'" as the New York Times reported. Kincaid praised the bill, saying "The purpose of the Ugandan bill, quite clearly, is to keep homosexuality in the closet, where it used to be in this country. The country's literal survival may depend on passage of this legislation, after it undergoes hearings and some revisions."
Kincaid is Cliff Kincaid, AIM's former editor and "Director of AIM's Center for Investigative Journalism."
Understand that while I find this utterly reprehensible, I'm not saying that AIM doesn't have a right to support a crimes-against-humanity agenda of not just repressing gays, but killing them. Even in America they have that right and I support that right. And it's not surprising that you'd these kinds of monsters being treated as a respected media establishment by conservatives at CPAC, as if they were the people who hand out Pulitzers. The hard right's anti-gay hatred is well known to all and CPAC is the hard right's biggest event of the year.
What's really troublesome is that CBS News sent its bureau chief to accept it on behalf of Sharyl, who I'd guess wanted absolutely nothing to do with CPAC or AIM.
What moron is running the show at CBS News that they'd send a person – their bureau chief of all people – to accept an award from a hate group, at a convention full of hate groups where people get big laughs and props for calling presidential candidates faggots and arguing that gays belong in the closet, lest society stop being nice and just kill them outright?
Moreover, two things. How is this in itself not a huge news story, and can you image the collective outrage from the media itself, from Congress, every Republican politician and conservative pundit on the planet if this situation were somehow reversed?
Would CBS news accept an award from a group that thinks all Christians should keep their religion in the closet, while supporting legislation overseas to make being Christian a crime worthy of execution, at a convention where big-name liberal pundits got big laughs and props from the crowd for calling Mitt Romney a faggot, or a cultist whore?
Don't hold your breath for any of that.
Oh, and naturally Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum are all scheduled to speak at CPAC tomorrow. A convention that hosted a white nationalist today, that hosted a group that supports legislation making being gay a death penalty offense.
American Taliban, anyone?
