White House Calls MSNBC, Complains About Halperin Remark

“Whatever action that network, any network, any newspaper might take, that’s not for us to decide.”

So as long as that media outlet isn’t a car plant or Boeing, the administration won’t barge in and tell them how to run their business. Good to know.

I’m curious as to whether or not the Obama administration ever privately admonished members of its party when they said similar, if not worse, about American voters? I never heard any public admonishment of Nancy Pelosi when she suggested that tea partiers were Nazis; or of Representatives John Lewis and Andre Carson when they slandered grassroots voters with a debunked and offensive accusation; or when Janet Napolitano put everyday grassroots Americans on the DHS watch list (I could go on at length but we’ll stop here); which makes me wonder if the White House did so privately. Regardless, we never received an apology.

Excuse me if I disregard the left’s outrage, the same side that screamed obscenities at a 14-year-old as she spoke during a pro-Walker Wisconsin rally; the same side who blamed the Tucson massacre on conservatives before the networks could accurately report whether or not Gabrielle Giffords’ was still alive (an action which caused Arizona tea partiers and Sarah Palin to get a wave of death threats). You all on the left act surprised at how much your #newtone has grown!

It’s hysterical to think that “dick” is an obscenity or that it in any way trumps the left’s verbiage the past several years; in fact, I thought it was comical that Scarborough and Halperin behaved as though they were pulling a George Carlin with a modified seven dirty words routine. Was Halperin wrong to suggest that the President had a tantrum and was rude to his audience by blaming corporate jets, evil, job creators, and condescending to congress by comparing them to his children? No, he wasn’t. (Dude, it’s your party that still hasn’t produced a budget, your homework, in two years.) Halperin could have phrased it differently. This isn’t “The Young Turks” on Youtube, this is is a professional network on … MSNBC. Yeah, OK. It’s still network television, though.

(An aside: The left has redefined morality and manners to mean that those who don’t support socialist policies are immoral but infant genocide is moral. Suddenly they’re the new censors. Wait, not suddenly. They’ve long loved them some censorship!)

MSNBC didn’t suspend Halperin because he showed as much respect for the office as the office has shown Americans these past several years; they suspended him due to profanity. If this was about respect for the office of the presidency, a number of their talking heads and analysts would have been canned ages ago when Bush was in office. If this came down to respect, they would have been canned over calling Palin, Bachmann, INSERT GOP/CONSERVATIVE INDIVIDUAL HERE an “idiot,” “zombie” and other names.

Being that I’m a free speech purist, I’m offended more by the blatant double-standard MSNBC shows in cherry-picking which officer holders to defend from pejoratives. People can use whatever language they want to demonstrate their creativity, or lack thereof. However, I also support businesses’ rights, so if MSNBC wants to suspend Mark Halperin because his language was unacceptable by their standards, they absolutely have that right. If MSNBC wants to suspend Halperin for his remarks while others on that network have said the same, if not worse, about Republican office holders and/or presidents, they also have that right. They can choose how to present themselves to the viewing audience: as a serious network or as a hypocritical joke.

As for those who pound their chests about respect for the office, I agree. We should absolutely have respect for elected office holders but it’s not so sanctified that the respect is barred from being reciprocated and I don’t believe that this administration has reciprocated that respect. I definitely don’t believe it when I see my President stopping short of stomping his feet and wailing behind a podium about how one party is to blame for their caution in approaching a financial issue that should have been solved two years ago by his own party. Blaming others for your mistakes on national television isn’t respectful, either.

The administration also needs to have respect for the office of the presidency and hold themselves and their members to a higher standard.

But of course, the leftist detractors won’t tell you that.