Timex
3553
Here’s the actual article from CNN, which wasn’t linked above.
This article is not suggesting equivalence between those two views.
Indeed, the article is about the radicalization of Babbitt, and how she is now being used as a political tool by the far right.
“She is going to be used for many, many years,” said Simon Purdue, a fellow at the UK-based Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, who last month wrote an article on the significance of Babbitt’s supposed martyrdom as a recruiting tool. “The more they mention her, the more dangerous her story is going to be.”
Purdue, the fellow from the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, drew parallels between the rhetoric surrounding Babbitt’s death and that of Vicki Weaver.
Weaver was the wife of White separatist Randy Weaver who was fatally shot by an FBI sniper during a standoff with federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992. The Weavers’ teenage son was also killed a day earlier as was a US marshal.
Vicki Weaver’s “perceived status as an innocent, white, female victim of ‘state aggression’ instantly placed her on a pedestal,” Purdue wrote. Her death in particular became a rallying cry and recruiting tool on the far right and helped inspire Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
“We’re seeing similarities in the way Ashli Babbitt is being treated,” Purdue said in an interview with CNN. “They’re talking about the death of Ashli Babbitt as proof that the state has gone too far. It’s proof that a revolution is necessary.”
This article is not doing what some here are suggesting, I don’t believe.
I had an NYT subscription for the past few years. They’d irritate me periodically, sometimes pretty badly. Folks around here ultimately convinced me to switch to WaPo because it’s “so much better” but having had it for a few months I’m not seeing it, in fact I’d say the two are pretty indistingiushable in that both insist on giving opinion space to garbage people and both frequently focus on the wrong aspects of a story.
So, seriously, why do people think WaPo is better? I’m considering cancelling, especially in the wake of this bullshit (and this is just the latest in a long line of this crap):
Dana Milbank isn’t a conservative, are you sure that’s not a satirical piece?
**
I googled the title, and found this: (Daily Kos, which I typically don’t read but it explains the piece.)
Dana Milbank sometimes writes columns that are satirical and deliciously snarky though more frequently he writes straight opinion pieces on serious topics.
Criticize it as clickbait or not, in this column the front page title was more catchy than the first title of the column.
The column focuses on how Josh Hawley has set the GOP agenda. Milbank describes Hawley as “the man who pumped his fist in solidarity with the people who attacked the Capitol” lest anyone forget who he is. Milbank offers these quotes from the GOP senator:
edit: for a quote
This is what stops me from subscribing to WaPo at any price. I’m just not going to contribute money to e.g. Marc fucking Thiessen. I get that it’s nearly impossible to find an opinion contributor from the right who isn’t ultimately a nut case, but better no one than the cretins they give column inches to.
No, because I’m not giving that headline any clicks. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t really matter if that one is a satirical column with a shitty headline, because there’s a larger pattern. Thiessen, Olsen, Will, there are simply too many fuming sacks of feculance on their opinion page.
Yup. From Douthat to Thiessen. Fuck anyone that gives these people oxygen. Add to that WaPo’s apparently need to signal boost every word Tucker Carlson says (they’re doing that to refute it, but we all know the impact of signal boosting of that sort) and I’m just… tired.
Timex
3558
WaPo’s best value comes in their investigative journalism.
In terms of opinion pieces, they’re just opinions. That’s not the majority of the WaPo, and honestly, it doesn’t hurt to see opinions from people you disagree with.
I don’t see any “opinions from people I disagree with” in that list, I see bad faith trolling. Mistaking the one for the other is really a problem that Democrats in general need to move past.
Opinion pieces that involve good faith, informed disagreement have huge value. “How Demoncrats are indoctrinating children!” does not.
I feel like WaPo and NYT both have a lot of value because of their investigative journalism pieces. They’ve still got divisions doing big stories that take multiple months to investigate and track down. It’s good stuff.
It’s certainly hard for them to find a conservative columnist that isn’t a loon. CNN seems to have the same problem.
Either they hire sane once-conservatives like Michael Gerson or Jennifer Rubin and they end up agreeing with the Democrats, or they have folks like George Will who can’t defend the GOP positions and end up writing about baseball half the time. The only way that they can find anyone to articulate any defense of the conservative so-called policies is to dredge up Marc Thiessen or Hewie Hewitt, who basically parrot the GOP talking points regardless of objective reality.
True, but Thiessen in particular is an enthusiastic defender of war crimes. There ought to be some bar a bit higher than that for WaPo.
I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that I have no interest in supporting a publication that has an opinion page. In this political environment I’m not sure there’s any value in such a thing. Just give me the actual news.
Maybe I’ll just go back to NPR. I stopped supporting them in the early Trump days because they wouldn’t call a spade a spade (and a lie a lie) but they seem to have evolved on that point.
KevinC
3564
I agree with this. WaPo has their share of trash in the Opinion section because of the need to be “fair and balanced” or whatever.
What pisses me off to no end about the NYT isn’t their Opinion section, it’s how they frame their actual news reporting/articles.
Indeed. The entire world has an opinion page. It’s called “Twitter”.
Thank you - that’s definitely part of what bugs me about it - it’s like having a social media feed (only I can’t even block the trolls) forcibly shoved into my news reading.
Timex
3568
Yeah, well for the WaPo, I generally read them for their actual news and don’t really care much about the opinion page. But for actual news, they’re top of the heap. The fact that they have an opinion page isn’t a great reason to not support their news department. It’s certainly not like it draws some significant amount of resources from their actual journalists, who are some of the best in the world.
Be advised, this is of course just my… opinion.
Sure, right. Like that hard hitting investigation in the NYT: “Does Subway’s Tuna Sandwich have any actual Tuna in it?”
Sure, but I just can’t give my money to Thiessman.
I read both.
Wow, the hivemind is really strong today. I saw the on headline on Milibanks column and literally laughed out loud, cause I knew it would be satire. Satire isn’t Dana’s strong point, he should really let Alexandra Petri do the satire, but the column was entertaining.
Honestly, in a city where 50 Republican senators and 211 Republican Congressman reside, and you get mad when two (Theissen, and Hewitt) and possibly P.J. O’rourke voted for Trump out of nearly 40 opinion columnist says more about you than it does about the Post. Hell, Fox has more Biden voters than WaPo has Trump voters. Plus WaPo has way better headline writers than the NY Times.
If you don’t get mad several times a week, (and not just at what the evil Republican are doing) at what you read or see on the news, may I suggest you need to consume a wider range of news sources.
The problem with NPR is that generally speaking they just reguirated what is in the NY Times, WaPo or the Atlantic. The PBS NewsHour actually does real reporting.
