Quit Doggin' Dog the Bounty Hunter

Can't a man use an offensive racial epithet in the privacy of his own home anymore without jeopardizing his lucrative reality television program? Duane "Dog" Chapman, star of A&E's Dog the Bounty Hunter has had his show suspended after he was taped saying the N-word repeatedly and he is devastated. Now reporters are hounding the poor bounty hunter, walking around his neighborhood, showing his picture to friends and neighbors, saying, "Have you seen this man? Do you know where we can find him? We just want to talk to him."

The irony of this whole thing is that anyone who knows Dog -- and who doesn't feel they know him from his well-edited television program -- knows that he isn't a racist. This whole misunderstanding started when he was actually trying to protect his son's black girlfriend from having to hear all the racial epithets he and the members of his crew and family say in a typical day. He was afraid they just wouldn't be able to stop themselves from using the N-word around her and she might take offense. We all know how touchy black people can be about these things, which is why Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck have been forced to stop socializing with all their black friends. So Dog told his son, Tucker, that he would either have to dump his girlfriend or quit the show. It was really for her own good, to spare her feelings.

"I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore or whatever," Dog patiently explained to Tucker. "It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word n----r sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fucking n----r heard us say n----r and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa [Dog's daughter] was dating a n----r, we would all say 'f--k you!' And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da... it's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word n----r. We don't mean you f--king scum n----r without a soul. We don't mean that s--t. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because 'I'm in love for 7 months' - f--k that! So, I'll help you get another job but you can not work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder."

"I don't even know what to say," Tucker replied.

It turned out that Dog was right to be worried about someone recording his words and people misconstruing them. Unbeknownst to him, Tucker taped their telephone conversation and sold it to the National Enquirer. If this incident shows anything, it shows what a good father Dog was in the way he instilled his values into his son. After all, Dog's work often depends on family members turning in their relatives.

Now America has the wrong idea about Dog even though it's hard to see how anyone could interpret his words as racist. As he explained to his son, when he uses the word n----r, he means it in the good way. In fact, Dog always thought of himself as practically an honorary black person: "There’s a special connection that I thought I had between me and black America," he explained. "And I used to say, 'I’m black, too.' In other words, I — my whole life I’ve been called a half-breed, a convict, king of the trailer trash, this and that. I take that and stand. So when I stood there and said, 'I kind of know what you feel like, because I’ve been there, too, I felt that I could embrace and like, as brothers or, even as a black woman, say the word."

And he didn't want his son to break up with his girlfriend just because she was black. If Tucker brought a Jew home, Dog would have been worried that his girlfriend would hear them making anti-Semitic remarks. Or if Tucker had a homosexual lover, think how difficult it would have been for the family not to let the word "faggot" slip out. Yet people insist on making it a racial thing.

It's hard not to feel sympathy for Dog, who still has a lot of fans. Even Whoopi Goldberg defended Dog on The View (she's not the one who thinks the world is flat, she's the other one), claiming that she uses racial slurs around her house all the time. Who doesn't? And Dog is really trying hard to make amends. Like Michael Richards, Mel Gibson and Don Imus, Dog has gone on CNN's Larry King and made a tearful apology. He went on Sean Hannity on Fox and cried there, too, saying "If I could kill myself and people would forgive me, I would do that," an offer some people are considering. He has asked to meet with the Rev. Al Sharpton. He has promised to seek counseling for anger management and to do something about his inability to stop saying the word n----r, which could take years of work. But that's not all. To show just how sorry he is Dog is making arrangements to spend eternity surrounded by black people. He wants to be buried at a slave burial ground near George Washington's home, Mount Vernon in Virginia. "I want to be buried right where they're at because I will never be forgiven as (long as) I'm alive," Chapman said. After he is dead, Dog should have no problem at all being around black people and not saying the word n----r. I think we all can be pretty sure of that.

Update: Now a Cat has had a remark he made "miscontrued" as racist, too. KT Cat was criticized when he wrote these words on his blog: "Blacks in America have become the perfect laboratory for the consequences of annihilating traditional sexual mores. At 70% illegitimacy, they have destroyed civilization at the molecular level. Still think it doesn't matter? Live it up, guys. Enjoy." Unfortunately, some people think that claiming blacks are destroying civilization is racist for some reason. But Cat was luckier than Dog. All he had to do was erase the statement from his post and all comments that referred to it and now it's like he never said it.


Share This Post



Jon Swift, Duane Chapman, Dog the Bounty Hunter, A&E, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, National Enquirer, Larry King, Don Imus, Racism, Television, Media
Carnivals: Carnival of Television, Celebrity Gossip Carnival

Glenn Beck Sees the Good Side of the Fires in California

Looking at the pictures on TV of the raging wildfires in California, which have led to the evacuation of 500,000 people and the loss of thousands of homes, it would all be so depressing if this natural disaster were a bad thing. But it turns out that there has been a plus side to the fires. For one thing, many evacuees are enjoying gourmet meals and massages. And as CNN's Glenn Beck pointed out on his radio show, some of the victims of the fires actually got what was coming to them. "I think there is a handful of people who hate America," Beck said. "Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." So while the wildfires raging near San Diego and Los Angeles might seem like an unmitigated disaster on first glance, they actually aren't all bad.

Of course, Beck was not saying that all of the people who lost their homes in the fires hate America. Only some of them. As Jammie Wearing Fool points out (linked with approval by Glenn Reynolds), "It's Beck's opinion that some who hate America live in that area. Is this even debatable?" Of course not. The rest of the people who lost their homes are what we might call collateral damage. Fire is a very imprecise method of punishing our enemies but a very effective one. Although Beck didn't mention the people who don't hate America who lost their homes, I'm sure he feels bad for them and wishes there were another way of giving the people who do hate America what they deserve.

Beck probably didn't mention all the non-America-haters who lost their homes in California because he doesn't like to dwell on the negative. He sees a raging wildfire as a glass half full instead of a glass half empty (although I am sure there are some former homeowners who wish that glass had been all the way full so that they could have thrown it on the fire.) In fact, Beck's observation came in the context of an uplifting colloquy about America coming together. "We're all one America," he said, with the exception, of course, of those now homeless America haters. "Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean you hate America, and I love America. We all love America. We just disagree on how we should function." Even Democrats love America, Beck said, peering through his rose-colored glasses. Unfortunately, there are some people who want to divide America, but if we could all come together and burn down the houses of those who really do hate America, think of how great this country could be.

There are some who might say that Beck is too optimistic, that his vision of America is too Utopian. Although many conservatives are opposed to Islam, Beck has said, "I know Muslims. I like Muslims." He even gave the first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison a chance to show that he wasn't a traitor on his program, saying to Ellison, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." I'm sure that Ellison was very grateful for the opportunity to show why his house should not be burned down.

This is not the first time Beck has talked about all the good that forest fires do. In July when forest fires raged in Utah, Beck wondered why liberals, who think Charles Darwin is so great, wanted to put the fires out. "While liberals embrace Darwinism, they reject it every step of the way, because they'll take impractical applications, they will put out every forest fire from lightning strikes," he said. "I'll meet you halfway. Let's put out the forest fires that man causes. If I'm -- if I'm there on a campfire and we forget to put it out, well, let's go fight that one. Lightning strike, hmm, we let it burn."

Seeing fires as bad, Glenn "Burn, Baby, Burn" Beck, believes, is just a matter of interpretation. "The only way anything bad ever happens to you is that you've interpreted it as bad," he went on to say. "Look for something positive, not negative. And at [sic] you decide to just build on negative, well, then that's your choice, and you've chosen to destroy yourself, and that's your choice."

Fires are not the only kind of natural disaster where the almost Pollyannaish Beck has emphasized the positive. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, he pointed out that the people who stayed behind were actually "scumbags" who basically got what they deserved so we don't really need to feel sorry for them. Of course, some of the people who lost their homes were not scumbags, but focusing on their tragedy would be too much of a downer for Beck. It would be like talking about all the people who died in Iraq instead of focusing on all the good news, like the fact that Iraq might have electricity by the year 2013. I must admit that Beck does make me feel a lot better about what happened to New Orleans.

While a lot of conservatives see immigration as a big problem, Beck does not just complain about it. Instead, he has sought out the kind of solutions that can turn a negative into a positive. "The country needs cheap, alternative fuel source," he said on his radio show. "Two, the human body is 18 percent carbon. Three, carbons can be turned into hydrocarbons. Four, we have a buttload of illegal aliens in our country." The solution: turn the bodies of illegal aliens into a fuel called Mexinol. Of course, Beck was only joking, but I think his little joke gives you a good idea of the kind of mind he has, the kind of mind that sees every problem as a means to a solution.

There are some tragic events where Beck is not able to see the good side until some time later. "It took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families," he said. I'm sure it was a difficult year for Beck as he desperately grasped for anything positive to say about September 11. I'm sure he looked at the footage of the World Trade Center towers coming down every day for a year and thought, Where's the good angle on this? Imagine the relief he must have felt when he realized that some obnoxious people actually deserved to lose their loved ones on that day. Suddenly, 9/11 didn't seem so bad after all.

There is so much negativity in politics these days that it is refreshing to have someone like Beck to show us the silver lining in every cloud. I'm glad that CNN, which always seems to focus on the bad news, has given Beck a relentlessly upbeat daily platform to show the other side. A day without Beck would be like a day without sunshine.

Share This Post



Jon Swift, Glenn Beck, California Fires, Hurricane Katrina, CNN, Politics, Beltway Traffic Jam

Smearing Matt Drudge

When Matt Drudge reported that CNN reporter Michael Ware heckled Senator John McCain at his press conference after taking a leisurely, uneventful stroll in the streets of Baghdad, a number of blogs and even newspapers picked up the story. But now some people are backing off the report, leaving the damaging impression that Drudge just made it up. Even if it turns out that Drudge was right, no matter how many corrections are run it will still be impossible for Drudge to completely regain his reputation. I think it's incredibly irresponsible to let this smear against Matt Drudge fester before all the evidence is in. No one has unequivocally disproved Drudge's story and to imply otherwise is unfair to Drudge.

When Drudge ran his story about Ware (which seems to have disappeared from his server for some reason but can be seen in the picture above), there didn't seem to be any reason to doubt it. Drudge based his story on a very reliable anonymous source whose credentials no one had questioned and who didn't appear to have an axe to grind. "An official at the press conference called Ware's conduct 'outrageous,' saying, 'here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I've never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter,'" Drudge wrote.

And the story certainly sounded true. Ware was the reporter who said, "I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about" when McCain said there were many safe neighborhoods in Iraq, and Drudge's report, based on an impeccable anonymous source, seemed to confirm the impression many people already had that Ware's reporting was biased. "Ah, professionalism," commented Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit about Ware's biased, unsourced reporting. "Maybe it is time for CNN to find a reporter that can function sober," Lorie Bird at Wizbang wrote. "Maybe Ware was drunk; that would be consistent with his own description of how he spends his time in Baghdad," John Hinderaker at Powerline said charitably. "But he is an extreme manifestation of an all too common phenomenon--the journalist as advocate rather than neutral observer." Blackfive commented, "I don't have any evidence that Michael Ware was ever hinged, but he is certainly Unhinged now," adding that Ware has spent "four years lying drunk under his bed in his Green Zone." Rodger Morrow called Ware "a useful idiot" and Ace of Spades, writing from his parents' basement, said that Ware has "trouble seeing" that the surge is working "from the lounge at the Intercontinental Hotel."

Then the left-wing smear machine kicked in. Ware unsurprisingly denied that he had heckled anyone. Inconclusive video seemed to show that Ware was silent throughout the press conference, which abruptly ended when Ware raised his hand to ask a question. Of course, it's very possible that Ware heckled McCain very quietly when the camera wasn't on him and everyone knows from the Rodney King case that videos can give false impressions. As Say Anything points out the video doesn't prove Ware didn't heckle McCain beyond a reasonable doubt and the burden of proof is on Ware to show that Drudge's anonymous, unimpeached source was lying.

Some liberals even claimed Drudge's anonymous source had an agenda even though no one could know for sure whether he had an agenda or not since no one knew who the source was! Many attacked the messenger, claiming that Drudge had gotten so many stories wrong before, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of his stories have turned out to be true.

Although Paul Meringoff at Powerline bravely said that Ware's denial was itself "enough to condemn him as unfit to cover the war," other conservative bloggers began to cut and run from Drudge caving in to fierce left-wing pressure. Some of those who originally reported story appended one-sentence updates all the way down at the ends of their pieces casting doubt on the story and Matt Drudge's reporting. They gave the false impression that Ware's denials were somehow equivalent to Drudge's impeccably researched article based on an unassailable anonymous source, reducing the story to a he said/she said argument.

Although Hinderaker at Powerline stuck to his guns about Ware being a drunk, he said, "Drudge owes his readers an explanation regarding his stance on the story," leaving the unfortunate impression that he was beginning to doubt the veracity of Drudge's reporting. Hot Air said the video "sort of" supports Ware, but pointed out it came from a Michael Ware fan site. Still, they pointedly refused to defend Drudge. Jules Crittenden said that even if this particular story was not true that doesn't mean the press isn't "pro-Al Qaeda" and reiterated that Ware is a "consort of terrorists," but unconscionably left Drudge out to dry. Lorie Bird at Wizbang also left the impression that Drudge's story was not technically true even though Ware is still a drunk. Rick Moran wrote, "One would have to say at this point that [Ware] is telling the truth - at least the truth as he perceives it to be," and added, "Perhaps he was drunk at the press conference," yet not only did he refuse to defend Drudge, he doesn't even mention Drudge at all in the post. (Correction: In the comments Mr. Moran points out this sentence in his post, which I somehow missed, although it just serves to confirm my main point about the unfair smearing of Drudge: "So it appears that Drudge doesn’t know what the word [heckling] means -- not surprising since it isn’t the first time his headlines have failed to jive with the story being reported." My apologies to Mr. Moran for the error.)

Reynolds appended an update to his original post that seemed to criticize Drudge and at the same time reduce his own responsibility for leaving any false impressions no matter how the story eventually turns out: "Looks like Drudge got burned, as, to a lesser degree, did those of us who relied on him." Then Reynolds went even further, writing a rather defensive post claiming that he doesn't "promise never to link to things that turn out not to be wrong," trying to wash his hands of all responsibility for casting doubt on Matt Drudge's reputation in case Drudge is vindicated. "I can't find where Drudge has retracted, but on this evidence I'm going with Ware over Drudge," was his weak conclusion. Don Surber also agreed that he was now going to believe Ware over Drudge, based apparently on the flip of a coin: "I'm going with Ware over Drudge. Them's the odds -- great editor, lousy reporter." Is that what the reputation of a fine reporter like Drudge hinges on--the odds?

It should be obvious that the people attacking Drudge are biased. And even if it turns out that Drudge made a mistake on this one story, is it fair to cast doubt on all the good reporting he has done and trash his reputation? Once a reputation is damaged, it can never be fully repaired. Some people will now always believe that Matt Drudge is a liar no matter how many times conservative bloggers unquestioningly link to him in the future. These bloggers should be embarrassed that they are perpetuating these smears of Drudge even as they cast doubt on Ware's veracity. They act as if they have no responsibility for smearing Drudge's good name, claiming that they are merely linking to stories attacking Drudge or posing questions as if they can't be bothered to do some cursory research on the answers to those questions or at least apply a smell test to allegations before they publish them. If these bloggers who are now sowing the seeds of doubt about Drudge's reporting abilities are not responsible for smearing him, then who is?

Share This Post



Jon Swift, Iraq, Michael Ware, Matt Drudge, CNN, Journalism, Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit, John Hinderaker, Powerline, Internet, Weblogs, Politics, Foreign Policy

Tim Hardaway Makes Homophobia Look Bad

With the recent furor over Tim Hardaway's antigay remarks, John Amaechi's book and the Snickers Superbowl commercial, suddenly everyone wants to know what athletes think of gay people. I think this situation has gotten out of hand, which is why I am proposing that the commissioners of all the major athletic organizations immediately impose a "don't ask, don't tell" policy: journalists, don't ask athletes what they think of gay people and athletes, don't tell us.

I don't want to hear what athletes think of the War in Iraq, global warming, nuclear proliferation or gay rights. To tell you the truth, I don't even want to hear what they have to say about sports, either, but sportscasters insist on interviewing them. Former Miami Heat star Hardaway, who doesn't have a lot of time to browse in book stores, probably wouldn't have even known about Man in the Middle, the book written by NBA center John Amaechi, in which he reveals that he is gay, if an interviewer hadn't told him about it. Hardaway was just speaking off the cuff when he told a talk radio host, "You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I'm homophobic, I don't like it, it shouldn't be in the world or in the United States." For saying out loud what a lot of athletes think he was banned from the NBA All-Star game and subjected to the malicious laughter of The Today Show's newscaster when she reported on his remarks.

It seems everyone jumped on Hardaway for what he said. Even the conservative group Concerned Women for America attacked him, lamenting that Hardaway has made being antigay look bad. "Hardaway’s comments are both unfortunate and inappropriate," said CWA’s Matt Barber. "They provide political fodder for those who wish to paint all opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as being rooted in 'hate.'" Although Barber agreed that "it’s perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral," he regretted that Hardaway’s inartfully framed remarks "only serve to foment misperceptions of widespread homosexual 'victimhood' which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured." All of the hard work that groups like CWA have done to make homophobia acceptable has now been ruined. Of course, the real victims here are the people who are now afraid to openly bash gay people because they might be subjected to ridicule by the liberal media.

Ironically, one of the few people to stand up for Hardaway was John Amaechi. "Finally, someone who is honest," commented Amaechi. "It is ridiculous, absurd, petty, bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far."

The furor caused by Hardaway's remarks even forced Wolf Blitzer to take precious minutes away from covering Anna Nicole Smith to talk about gays in the NBA. Interviewing NBA commissioner David Stern, Blitzer quoted another NBA expert on homosexuality, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James: "LeBron James said this, he said: 'If you're teammates, you have to be trustworthy, and if you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, then you are not trusting.' He makes a point." Of course, Blitzer knows that the reason he is one of the most trusted anchormen in America is because his name tells us all we need to know about his sexual orientation. It would be devastating for the credibility of any news anchorman if it turned out he was not being forthcoming about his sexuality. If this is true for journalists, it must also be true in basketball, which is why gay athletes must be encouraged to come out so that they can be shunned and beaten up by their teammates and hounded from the NBA.

Blitzer also makes an important point about locker rooms: "This is a situation like gays in the military, within close quarters - the locker rooms in the NBA, these guys are all together." I'm sure Blitzer has had the same experiences I have had in the locker room at my gym, where gay men are constantly staring at my naked body, their eyes practically burning me with their lascivious desire. I have had to quit going to the gym because of it, but athletes and soldiers don’t have that option.

The locker room used to be the one place where real men could feel safe and secure in their masculinity. In high school, athletes were often picked on by acerbic gay wits who cruelly ridiculed them with jokes that went over their heads, while girls, who thought of them as little more than slabs of muscle to accompany them to school dances, giggled behind their backs. For jocks the locker room was a welcome respite from the taunts of other kids, a space where they could be themselves, snapping towels at other guys and patting them on the butt, without having to confront difficult psychological questions about the complexities of human sexuality. Now we want to ruin that for them? Perhaps the most tragic result of this controversy is that someone has uploaded videos of Hardaway naked in the locker room. Now millions of gay men can leer at him slathering lotion on his muscular thighs and buttocks and he is powerless to stop them.

Until Hardaway was forced to humiliate himself with tortured apologies in a desperate attempt to save his lucrative endorsement contracts, I thought there was nothing more painful than watching pro football players being coerced into viewing the Snickers commercial in which two men kiss. Why did the Mars Company think it would be funny to subject athletes to this kind of psychological trauma? Our athletes are already having enough trouble competing in the world as demonstrated by their abysmal showings in the World Baseball Classic, the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. Do we need to add more stress to their lives by making them confront their feelings about homosexuality? I hope we can go back to the idea that there are no gays in professional sports. Things were a lot easier for people like Tim Hardaway when they believed that gay people throw like girls. What possible good could come from disabusing them of that notion now?

Share This Post


Jon Swift, Basketball, NBA, Tim Hardaway, John Amaechi, LeBron James, Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Concerned Women for America, Snickers, Gay, Homosexuality, Sports