May 4,
2004: #01 Political
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MSNBC's pulling Rall-- Too little, too short to "stand tall"; MSNBC tries to perfume intellectual stench of Ted Rall's cartoon mocking Pat Tillman and troops who served with him in Iraq and Afghanistan.·
MSNBC's
pulling Rall,
though right for un-casting his pall,
was too late applied
and too short on "why"
for claiming thereby they "stood tall."
They
chose not to say "We're appalled"
but rather an "item" by Rall
"concern[ing] the late
Pat Tillman" escaped
the "fairness" and "taste" they'd applaud.
Their
words to explain their decision
were weaker than mere euphemisms
for content that mocked
the courage unlocked
by those who defend freedom's vision.
It appears that late yesterday afternoon (circa 4:45 pm EDT, which was before PoliSat.Com's Daily Update for May 3, 2004, began appearing on the internet), MSNBC "took down" the infamous Ted Rall cartoon mocking Pat Tillman's choice to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. MSNBC deserves credit for doing so but not for the tepid explanation of its reason for doing so and for its failure to do so many hours earlier. Here's MSNBC's explanation:
"MSNBC.com pulled a cartoon by syndicated political cartoonist Ted Rall on Monday.
Rall’s cartoon, distributed widely by Universal Press Syndicate to scores of newspapers and Web sites, concerned the late Pat Tillman, the NFL player who quit football to join the Army. Tillman was killed last month in Afghanistan.
The cartoon, like others on MSNBC.com, is published daily on the site via an automated syndication feed. Such feeds are rarely reviewed. However, MSNBC.com Editor in chief Dean Wright concluded Monday’s Rall item did not meet MSNBC.com standards of fairness and taste."
MSNBC.com's explanation described the cartoon as one that "concerned the late Pat Tillman" and stated that MSNBC.com's Editor, Dean Wright, "concluded Monday's Rall item did not meet MSNBC.com standards of fairness and taste." From this tepid explanation, someone unaware of the content of the cartoon could infer that it may have politicized his death to promote the war rather than having mocked Tillman's choice to turn his back on riches to serve his country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, it would have been too politically incorrect for MSNBC to have objectively characterized the cartoon as one that mocked Tillman's choice. No rational person possessing common sense could have construed such characterization as lacking objective accuracy.
If, for example, MSNBC.com were to have discovered that material automatically posted to its site by syndication constituted child pornography, wouldn't MSNBC.com have "pulled" it immediately upon discovering its presence and immediately posted an explanation objectively and accurately describing the "pulled" material as "child pornography"? Would such posting describe the "pulled" item merely as one that "concerned" children and describe MSNBC.com's reason for "pulling" it merely by stating that the "item did not meet MSNBC.com standards of fairness and taste"?
That MSNBC.com waited so many hours before it "pulled" the intellectual stench of Rall's "cartoon" mocking Tillman and that MSNBC.com declined to objectively and accurately characterize it in posting an explanation for having "pulled" it speak volumes about MSNBC.com's addiction to political correctness. Why else would MSNBC.com be to shy to objectively state how the cartoon '[failed to] meet MSNBC.com's standards of fairness and taste"?
What about Slate? By virtue of the offensive cartoon having appeared on an MSBNC.com page labeled "Opinions with Slate," and by virtue of the fact that MSNBC.com pages incorporate front-page contents from Slate under the sub-banner "Opinions with Slate," one wonders whether Slate's silence on MSNBC.com's "pull[ing]" the cartoon implies Slate's failure to approve, if not its disapproval of, MSNBC.com's decision to "pull" it.
--Jim Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.
Daily Update immediately preceding the one above.
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