DC Trawler

Five words to make any Journolister nervous: ‘The second in a series’

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It’s certainly not news that liberals don’t like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Channel. But maybe some of them are taking it a little too far.

Jonathan Strong just put up another story on the now-dismantled liberal media treehouse, Journolist. Today’s installment has some doozies. Here’s an NPR producer named Sarah Spitz talking about what she’d do if Rush Limbaugh was having a heart attack in front of her:

In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”

Spitz’s hatred for Limbaugh seems intemperate, even imbalanced. On Journolist, where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it barely raised an eyebrow.

Which is the point: Why was this sort of hate speech considered acceptable among her peers?

I blame Fox News, of course, and so did some of the Journolisters:

Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air…

“If this means that some White House reporters don’t get a press pass for the press secretary’s daily briefing and that this means that they actually have to, you know, do some reporting and analysis instead of repeating press releases, then I’ll take that risk.”

Well, of course. Why should they be allowed to say things you don’t agree with? Why should you be expected to present a rebuttal, when you can just stop them from saying anything at all?

P.S. Mark Hemingway: “Why again is NPR publicly funded?”

P.P.S. For the record: If Keith Olbermann was having a heart attack in front of me, I would call 911.

P.P.P.S. Limbaugh responds, telling Byron York: “Not having wished anyone dead, nor having fantasized about watching someone die, I cannot possibly relate to this.”

Jim Treacher