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CounterPunch
January
9, 2003
None Dare Call
It Liberal Lottism
Arab Bashing at the Tallahassee Democrat
By JACK McCARTHY
For lack of a more creative phrase, lets call
it the Trent Lott syndrome. Or better yet, the Trent Lott drill.
Push the racist envelope as far as possible,
and just short of shouting, "sieg heil."
In the midst of the firestorm/response
issue a (patently contrived and coerced) heartfelt apology about
not being "sensitive" to the fact that the subject
of your racist wrath takes offensive.
And finally, walk gleefully to the woodshed,
promise to be more "sensitive" in the future and begin
anew.
Which brings us to the Knight Ridder
daily "Tallahassee Democrat", veteran reporter Bill
"Capital Curmudgeon" Cotterell, cartoonist Doug Marlette
and Knight Ridder's great white hope of an executive editor,
John Winn Miller.
On Friday morning, January 3d, many Tallahassee
Democrat readers were startled and stunned (I wasn't one of them)
to read the below the fold headline, "Democrat reporter
suspended following offensive e-mail."
This delicious, scandal promising headline
was accompanied by an explanatory letter "To Our Readers"
from editor John Winn Miller, who provided readers with the who,
what and why of the matter at hand:
"On behalf of the Tallahassee Democrat,
I apologize to all of our readers, and most especially to members
of the Islamic faith everywhere, for the intemperate e-mail comments
of political writer/columnist Bill Cotterell.
They absolutely do not represent the
views and SENSITIVITIES (MY CAPS) of this newspaper.
"Bill spoke, via company e-mail
in anger and frustration to a reader. Shortly after he sent the
message, he realized his mistake, and he has since apologized
to all of his colleagues for the hurt and embarrassment he knows
he caused.
' I was wrong and I am sorry,' he (Cotterell)
said in an unsolicited statement (yeah, right John) to his editors.
'My remarks were grossly inappropriate
and do not reflect my views toward Muslim people.'(Perhaps he
meant Arabs of all faiths?)
Groveling further, Cotterell continued:
'It would be bad enough if my comments
reflected only on my own lack of judgment, but I realize that
I have embarrassed the newspaper.'
Cotterell's violation of Knight-Ridder's
sensitivity strictures took place in the context of a letter/reply
to a reader who as it happens was upset that editor John Winn
Miller had pulled/censored a cartoon by Pulitzer boy Doug Marlette
that appeared on the Democrats web edition.
The cartoon showed an angry Arab driving,
of all things, a Ryder Truck. The caption read, "What would
Mohammed Drive?"
After receiving numerous complaints about
Marlette's crude cartoon Miller did the Lott grovel, publishing
a tortured apology in the print edition of the paper.
After some less than Voltarian huffing
and puffing about Marlette's right to free expression (but not
in the Tallahassee Democrat), Miller pled out, and informed the
offended why he never knew it was on the website in the first
place!
And now that he knew, Mohammmad's Ryder
truck was being returned to the garage for sensitivity repair.
Miller's missive was followed by a Marlette
guest column lambasting censorious readers, in particular "The
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the organization
which also protested Cotterell's offending e-email.
And which, by the way, if memory serves,
endorsed George W Bush in the 2000 presidential campaign, as
did most other major U.S. Islamic organizations.
Marlette solemnly lectured offended readers
that "free speech" was what this country is all about,
but let Miller off the hook, never mentioning that it was actually
Miller and not the readers who actually censored his cartoon.
Cotterell's Lott-grovel became necessary
after he emailed one of Marlette's detractors a red-necky rendition
of recent Arab-Israeli relations.
And which, speaking of cartoons, rather
resembled a "Hustler" magazine cartoon in its crude
conceptual presentation of the middle east conflict:
"Except for Jordan and Egypt, no
Arab nation has a peace treaty with Israel. They've had 54 years
to get over it. They choose not to.
"Ok, They can squat around the camel-dung
fire and grumble about it, or they can put their bottoms in the
air five times a day and pray for deliverance; that's their business.
"And I don't give a damn if Israel
kills a few in collateral damage while defending itself. So be
it."
Ironically, Winn Miller was installed
as Democrat executive editor after the controversial sacking
of black editor Lorraine Branham a couple of years ago. Branham's
firing was the subject of and article in Editor and Publisher.
The buzz was that Branham's sacking came because after her appointment,
many white subscribers began to cancel subscriptions.
Although the Democrat, which preaches
the diversity, affirmative action gospel, denied that race had
anything to do with Branham's dismissal, they installed Winn
without interviewing any black or white applicants. The appearance,
as they say, is that Knight-Ridder chucked affirmative action
quicker than you can say Trent Lott, in hope of winning back
the white subscriber vote.
None dare call it liberal Lottism.
As for Cotterell, his punishment is a
week's suspension without pay and a lifetime of Lott grovelling.
And some tender kissing of air hanging Arab bottoms.
And while facing east of course.
Jack McCarthy
lives in Tallahassee. He can be reached at: jackm32301@yahoo.com
Yesterday's
Features
Jeffrey St. Clair
Under the White Robe:
The Ghosts of Pickering's Past
Elaine Cassel
Maryland's
Death Penalty:
Race and Prosecutors
Wayne Madsen
Big Oil and James Baker Target the Western Sahara
Ritt Goldstein
The Price of Oil? War
Uri Avnery
Let the Purges Begin
Crushing Dissent in Israel
Sean Carter
The Presidential Application
Adam Engel
Dear Mr. President, Who ARE You?
Michael S. Ladah
An Appeal for Bethlehem
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