Matt Lauer should be ashamed of himself

BobcatJH

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Fri Oct-27-06 09:02 AM
Original message

Matt Lauer should be ashamed of himself

I've been of two minds on my fellow Ohio University alumnus and "Today" host Matt Lauer. I've called him a hack. I've patted him on the back. But whatever faith in and respect for Lauer I've felt recently went out the door when I read his statements surrounding Rush Limbaugh's shameful comments about Michael J. Fox's appearance in recent campaign commercials. Limbaugh, you'll remember, accused Fox of "exaggerating the effects of the disease", calling it "purely an act". In other words, faking it to score political points. Those comments, in a civilized society, would leave Limbaugh not only jobless, but also at the center of a mountain of bipartisan scorn. But we're not living in that society. We're living in a society under Republican control, a society in which Fox, not Limbaugh's reprehensible statements, become the center of the story. A society in which people like Lauer can say things like: "Didn't Rush Limbaugh just say what a lot of people were privately thinking?"

Excuse me? So for being an ill-informed, insulting, prejudiced asshole, Limbaugh isn't instantly universally regarded as an ill-informed, insulting, prejudiced asshole, but instead as the voice of the silent majority? Apparently so, at least in Lauer's world, where making horrendously inappropriate statements that even the biggest assholes are scared to utter in public christens Limbaugh some sort of latter-day Thomas Paine. And that's just what people like Limbaugh and Lauer's "a lot of people" are: Assholes. You know, I've tried to refrain from the most inflammatory invective for some time, but I just can't let this stand, and neither can you. These are low people we're dealing with, folks. Lower than low. Lower than whale shit, in fact. People who call an opponents' staffer the equivalent of "nigger". People who play on people's prejudices to win elected office. People who cover for a child predator in order to maintain their majority. People who blame the pages, on the heels of their blaming the victims of Hurricane Katrina. And now people who accuse those suffering with terrible diseases of faking it. If those people aren't assholes, I don't know who is.

What's almost as bad as the fact that Limbaugh said what he said is that far too many people - quite a bit who should know better - are looking the other way, or worse. People who, instead of denouncing such offensive behavior, reward it. People who keep giving publicity to a woman who called Muslims "ragheads" and suggested someone poison a sitting Supreme Court justice. People who don't forever dismiss faith-based demagogues who call for political assassinations. People who hand prime-time talk shows to fact-free, feckless morons who call the victims of Katrina "scumbags". And, more importantly, people who vote into office a party whose platform rests solely on fear, gutter politics and divisiveness. What's more, people who, once that party takes office, look the other way while the administration declares unjust war, the destruction of the Constitution and torture standard operating procedure.

So what used to get you branded an extremist, laughed out of the room or punched in the face now gets you patted on the back, placed in the spotlight and rewarded for each increasingly shocking statement. Chalk it up to a culture of growing indifference toward matters that at one time would have ground our society to a halt. In other words, a society that shrugs its shoulders as disaster slowly, but surely, approaches. So while Lauer's question is, in itself, stomach-turning, the fact that the people who do think as he suggests are holding sway is even worse. But back to Lauer. Let's not let him slide for such an offensive statement. Tell me, Matt, who privately thinks that? Do you feel that way? Did it make you feel good to see a fine, upstanding American like Limbaugh put that Hollywood liberal in his place? Did it give you pleasure to see someone whose career was built on a mountain of lies and an even bigger mountain of slander purposely impersonate the mannerisms of a man suffering from Parkinson's Disease? Because people who do privately think like that, who do say those things in public, aren't people who should be considered a part of civilized society, let alone championed as the voice of the nation. They are, at worst, evil and, at best, assholes.

Is that how you want to be remembered, Matt? As the heartless individual who not only suggested that Limbaugh's obscenities were, in some way, the conventional wisdom, but also who subsequently asserted that people like Fox who insert themselves "in the fray" had to expect to be "taken to account"? Taken to account? Why aren't you taking Limbaugh to account, Matt, instead of the man using his condition to work to better the lives of millions of others? I hope for your sake, Matt, that you never find yourself in Fox's shoes. Both because you could never be half the man he is and because no one should have to suffer the ridicule of people like Limbaugh and the questioning of people like you. When I saw you take on the president, asking him truly tough questions, I began to think better of you. Shame on me. I should have realized that, only a short time later, you would again remind me why the opinions of fluff journalists like yourself should be taken about as seriously as those of the Limbaughs of the world. It embarrasses me that you're one of the most public faces of our alma mater. But it embarrasses me more that you, too, are treating a very real issue as though it were a game. You should be ashamed of yourself.