Many, many newspapers around the nation ran a version of the AP, Gannett or McClatchy stories about Rep. Virgil Goode today, so every news consumer in the nation should be aware of this story by bedtime.
Closer to home, feature articles were written by Mason Adams for the Roanoke Times, Rex Bowman for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Zachary Goldfarb for the Washington Post. The Post even uses the Getty photo of Goode that CNN used, a photo that can only cause viewers to dislike Goode upon first glance. (Anybody can be photographed at a bad moment, of course. This was such a moment for him.) Finally, the Roanoke Times has an editorial on the matter, asking “How can one swear to uphold the Constitution while denying its protection to all Americans?”
For accuracy’s sake, I want to clarify something from The Roanoke Times piece:
Waldo Jaquith, a Charlottesville Democrat who runs a Web log that posted the letter Tuesday, said he’d initially agreed with Goode on many of his stances on illegal immigration. But this letter, he said, is “pure bigotry.”
My poorly-phrased comments to reporter Mason Adams led him rightly to conclude that I initially agreed with Rep. Goode on illegal immigration. But I did not and do not agree with his stances on the matter, though I’m always looking to learn more. What I meant, but just didn’t have the good sense to say, is that I believed his stances were based on honest beliefs and reasonable facts rather than, say, blind hatred and crass stereotyping. It would be entirely wrong for me to claim that I agreed with Rep. Goode up until he went off the deep end, but that wouldn’t be true.
Don’t worry, Waldo. I think liberal bona fides are quite safe around here.
Wow, there’s some scary stuff on the Roanoke Times discussion board. Like this guy, who proposes rounding up Muslims and putting them in camps:
And this fellow, who has a message for Rep. Ellison — whose family has been in the United States since the 1740s — knows what Ellison should do:
Perhaps, by “over there,” he means Michigan?
One need not be (or espouse the positions of) a neo-nazi to hate Muslims, but the overlap certainly seems significant.
Oh, that’s hardly my concern. :) It would be a much more compelling narrative for me to claim that I was with Goode right up until this latest statement, and now he’s gone too far even for me, an opponent of immigration. My concern is that I don’t want anybody to think that I’ve adopted a position that is not my own for the purpose of making Rep. Goode look foolish.
If I am not persuaded by the arguments of liberalism on a matter — immigration or otherwise — then I’m not shy about espousing opinions that are far from the party line. Gun control now, global climate change and affirmative action in the past (though I’ve changed my mind on both of those since).
An interesting and obvious comparison can be made to our former Senator who spoke one way to supposedly friendly constituents and spoke a completely different way to the rest of the world.
But, as of today’s papers Mr. Goode is sticking to his guns. Must think–knows– this plays well in Southside.
But as Southside turns inward and loses more and more “talent” and members of the “creative class” because the place is so intolerant, their economy will shrink even more (people will have to go elsewhere to find jobs) so follows their larger population: the foundation of Goodes support.
That’s what I don’t get about these anti-immigration folks. Immigration (new blood, new talent) has always been an economic engine in America . . . oh well.
This is all in the same vein of shooting self in the foot as the gay marriage amendment (how difficult can we make it for multi nationals, universities and other businesses to provide benefits for their employees!?!); and the fact that the military desperately needs Arabic translators but keeps firing the ones they have because they are gay.
Oh well, again.
The issue concerning the quotation makes me wonder why journalists don’t share pre-print versions of their articles with people they quote. I realize that deadlines loom and sometimes the story goes to print late in the cycle, but it seems so easy (to say nothing of polite) to ask sources to confirm their statements.
I’m not nearly as quotable as Waldo, but most of the time I’ve been quoted by the media I’m astonished at how contorted my words became. It doesn’t seem malicious at all — to the contrary I think it is simply a consequence of the human memory being an inadequate record of what we see and hear.
Oh well, this is really a side issue, but the mangled quote got me thinking about it. Can anyone with journalism experience comment on the practice of not double checking quotes?
What were his stances on the issue of illegal immigration? (not counting his bigotry or the letter).
My perception has been that most career politicians in Washington have simply been dodging the issue until Bush laid it at their feet this year with his amnesty proposal (which pissed off his fiscally conservative base in the southwest)and that Goode was probably no different.
All this crap about immigration has been about bigotry all along.
Goode hasn’t been quiet on immigration, not for years now. He’s been one of the strongest advocates for a border fence. (Americans for Better Immigration — with a name that I assume is code for “shut down the borders” — gives him a career A+ and a recent A-, as they, too, attempt to point out the Johnny-come-latelies. You can see their report card to find out more about his stances.
How about some intellectual hygiene? There is legal immigration and there is illegal immigration. Am I a bigot for being very unhappy that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants are wandering about the U.S. doing god-knows-what?
The McClatchy story appeared in the print edition of our local paper, the Virginian-Pilot, today. (Not available on PilotOnline, though.)
Am I a bigot for being very unhappy that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants are wandering about the U.S. doing god-knows-what?
No, of course not. But you would be a bigot if you: (1) Said that American Muslims should not use or refer to the Koran in public; (2) object to the fact that Muslims are being elected to political office in the United States; (3) suggest that native-born Muslims like Rep. Ellison are somehow connected with illegal immigration; and (4) proudly recount how you put a young Muslim student in his place by telling him that his religion would never be honored in your office.
Virgil Goode did all of those things. That’s why he is being called intolerant. And if he does not apologize for those aspects of his letter (no one is asking him to apologize for his stance on illegal immigration, or even for his personal view that legal immigration should be tightened), he is not worthy to represent the citizens of the 5th District.
We protected the country during WW2 by detaining Japanese. Welcome to WW3. Look back at the 1930’s and see the resemblance of germany in respect to Iran.
Right! I don’t like Iranians, so I’ll just blindly compare them to Nazis! Because nobody likes Nazis! And we all know that the only way to deal with people like that is to put them in concentration camps!
Someone needs a history lesson.
Thanks for that clarification. Strange isn’t it that a immigrant citizen will be quizzed on their comprehension of the United States Constitution, and other civic matters, before gaining the right to vote; yet any native citizen with a satellite dish, and a feed from Fox News is considered vote-ready.
Goode is a moron. PC aside, how does any politician not learn to be diplomatic in how he speaks?
He doesn’t want a moslem to swear on the Koran? Doesn’t he know that swearing on anything is not prescribed?
Duane Gran,
You write: “The issue concerning the quotation makes me wonder why journalists don’t share pre-print versions of their articles with people they quote…”
Here’s what I know about it: With interviews, when I’m using quotes or characterizing someone’s statements, I usually read them back to the person to double check that I didn‘t misunderstand them.
When I’m working on a feature, with time to carefully check everything, I usually email the copy to the person who is being covered, for them to look over.
This I do for two reasons. I want to get it right and I get their trust when I promise to do that. But I have learned that lots of editors don’t like my method. Some even have suggested it’s somewhat unprofessional.
So, I don’t always mention to an editor that I am used to working that way.
On the other hand, the people I interview love it. The bottom line is that much of today’s rip-and-read journalism, especially when it’s using quotes from non-big-shots, is simply about creating copy — attention-getting, or at least interesting — without all that much concern about its accuracy.
“Am I a bigot for being very unhappy that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants are wandering about the U.S. doing god-knows-what?”
Probably 11 million, 990 thousand of them are doing menial jobs so that you won’t pay more to get your roof replaced or for a basket of strawberries. I like those odds.
As for the interview, it’s Neil Cavuto, Waldo. I guess Hannity was fellating a bigger conservative “star” today, and bumped Virgil to Fox’s B-list fluffer. Neil’s there to coax a more articulate xenophobia out of Virgil, not to challenge Virgil to defend it. But, I’m all for putting Virgil’s face and attitude on the national GOP. Karl Rove’s dream of attracting Hispanic American voters away from the Democrats–something at which Jeb and George W. Bush were quite adept and quite canny–gets deader every day. Maybe Virgil will have a chance to discuss his views with ex-Congressman Henry Bonilla, the recent GOP incumbent who lost his special election in no small measure because of Republicans like Virgil Goode and Tom Tancredo.
Some of us Michiganders did escape the peninsula, you know. You should be very afraid of us. Our guru is Michael Moore.
As far as journalists double-checking quotes with people, I can tell you that as former newspaper guy this practice inevitably created loads of headaches. I would do it if the source insisted, but the problem is that almost inevitably the person does not like what they originally said, often denying they said the quote at all. I also learned early on that it is quite difficult to transcribe an interview with 100% accuracy while conducting said interview, and eventually began to record, and then transcribe, all conversations.
Ok, James, here’s your lesson:
In case you are unfamiliar with the dirty laundry of the Nazis’ rise to power, Hitler’s primary opposition from inside the party was Ernst Roehm, the charismatic, openly gay leader of the SA (stormtroopers). Leftists opposing the rising Nazi regime tried to use homosexuality as a smear against the party to discredit Hitler. Himmler successfully engineered the fiction that the smear campaign was the product of Jews trying to discredit the movement. When Hitler decided that Roehm was too much of a threat to his power, he too used homosexuality as the charge, this time as his putative reason to permanently purge Roehm and his allies from the SS ranks. Thus, they codified homosexuality as a crime and forced gays to wear pink triangles, which–not coincidentally–was the same insignia used to identify pedophiliacs and committers of incest, officially defining gays as a threat to the Reich and the moral purity of Germany.
Iran’s legal code is based on a conservative interpretation of Islamic Shari’a law. Homosexual relations are a crime and carry a maximum punishment of death. Under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Mugwump, young men are hanged in a public square for being found guilty of “lavat,” though the ultimate punishment is usually reserved for gay political dissidents. In fact, since the revolution, he has managed to dispose of over 120,000 political opponents, though certainly not all them through this particular rubric.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the holocaust “a myth,” said that Israel should be “wiped off the map” and suggested that Israel could be moved to Alaska or Europe, mirroring Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” in which he recommended that all Jews be transported to Madagascar or Borneo.
In May 2006, the Iranian parliament passed bill requiring all non-Muslims to wear a special insignia on the outside of their clothing. The last nation to require such overt designation was Germany, under Hitler’s rule.
Do ya see any parallels yet? Because I do.
It doesn’t take Germany’s economy to create a Hitler-like threat anymore, because war isn’t fought by conventional means like it was in 1938; rather, it takes only a single-minded determination to win your goal(s) at all costs and nuclear weapons, which Iran very nearly possesses in case you missed that news bulletin.
I don’t believe Iran wants to take over the world. I don’t think their megalomania extends as far as Hitler’s, so there is a limit to the comparison. But, from what I’ve seen, they want to become The Power in the Middle East, and we have deliberately made ourselves a huge obstacle to their goal. Does it matter what their limit is, if part of their avowed mission becomes leveling the United States? There are more ways to accomplish that mission than by declaring open war.
I feel (1) there is much more havoc to be had from this situation on our homefront, (2) we need to address it before we find our country balkanized like much of Europe is becoming, and (3) you are blithely ignoring these potentialities in order to trivialize the speakers you dislike on this board.
The New York Times now has an article up as well. It ends with this wonderful set of quotes:
Um. Separation of church and state. Unless it’s the Christian church>?
“In May 2006, the Iranian parliament passed bill requiring all non-Muslims to wear a special insignia on the outside of their clothing. The last nation to require such overt designation was Germany, under Hitler’s rule.”
Not going to go into the full details of why your history of the Third Reich and its prejudices has a rather bizarre slant, but I will say that the above story, regarding the non-Muslim insignia designation, was a lie perpetrated by an AEI “scholar” through one of Murdoch’s Canadian publications. The story fell apart when it reached what passes for the mainstream press, whose correspondents, including Jewish ones, couldn’t identify any such statute. The closest they came was a resolution that encouraged the Iranian production of conservative garments rather than importation of them. Also, if we’d wanted to stymie Iranian influence in the Gulf, invading Iraq was just about the wrongest move EVAR. The Iranians were cooperative with our invasion of Afghanistan, though. Perhaps this invasion thing was some sort of reward.
Germany was a nation of 80 million and the third or fourth largest industrial power in the world in 1939. There’s a difference. Not too worried about Iran “leveling” us.