Day: June 8, 2007

It’s Not Paris, It’s the Stupid Media

Buck Banks

While we all sympathize with the incredible psychological pressure Paris Hilton must have been under while being unable to shave her legs for three days, we have to wonder if, besides Al Sharpton (and maybe Lindsay Lohan and Michelle Ritchie), anyone really has a good reason to care about the story.

This is news: There’s a G8 meeting under way, the president is hung over, Lebanon is burning, Putin’s getting all Cold War-ry on us and soldiers and civilians are dying in Iraq. Yet our cult of personality remains obsessed with the story of the poor little rich girl who thinks it’s okay to get drunk and drive a car again and again.

‘Are we just so pathetic and so lonely that we have to live life through people like Paris Hilton?’

TVNewser provides a log of the shallowness of cable television’s reportage of Hilton’s release from jail yesterday:

10:36 am, MSNBC: Chris Jansing asks the Village Voice’s Michael Musto: “You know everything there is to know about Paris Hilton. Does she have a medical condition?” “Yeah, she’s crazy,” he says…

11:01 am, FNC: Co-host E.D. Hill: “It is a great day in America if your name is Paris Hilton or you are an illegal alien. Today, we’ll tell you why…”

11:56 am, CNN: Immediately following an interview with General David Petraeus about Iraq, Heidi Collins says: “Well you know, we’ll always have Paris, but she won’t always have a cell…”

12:08 pm, MSNBC: The cabler reveals an animation titled “Paris Hilton Free,” complete with a bark from her dog Tinkerbell. “Paris Hilton’s long, grueling ordeal behind bars has come to an end,” Lisa Daniels mocks…

12:10 pm, FNC: Jon Scott’s attempt to transition from the G8 to Hollywood: “While the president is in Germany, the world’s attention is focused on Paris — Paris Hilton…”

12:22 pm, CNN International: “These are live pictures from our affiliate KTLA, helicopter pictures of the home of Paris Hilton… We’re watching that home. Lots of cars down there.” Co-anchor Stephen Frazier transitions: “Let’s turn now to Harvard…”

12:44pm, MSNBC: “It’s good to be rich and famous in America,” legal analyst Susan Filan concludes. “It is; I wish I was both,” Lisa Daniels responds…

1:38 pm, FNC: “This was not a good punishment for her,” a Live Desk panelist says. “The real punishment for Paris Hilton, I think, would be that the media gives her no coverage at all… That would be cruel and unusual punishment for her…”

1:54 pm, CNN: Kyra Phillips asks a guest: “Are we just so pathetic and so lonely that we have to live life through people like Paris Hilton?”

2:25 pm, MSNBC: After talking about immigration, Contessa Brewer asks political analyst Pat Buchanan: “I have got to ask you, is it fair that Paris Hilton is under house arrest?…”

4:09 pm, FNC: Neil Cavuto jokes: “Do you know if Paris sold stock today?” “I don’t know if she knows what stock is,” his guest responds.

Before You Leave for the Weekend…Important Friday News Dump

Trish

It’s coming hot and heavy:

Gen. Pace is out as chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates blames it on Congress; says Pace wouldn’t have been able to be reconfirmed when his current term is up in September.

Gonzales will face “no confidence” vote in the Senate on Monday. Bush says he’s doing a heckuva job and the vote is simply “political thee-AY-ter.”

The CIA denies claims by more than 30 current and former intelligence officers here and in Romania and Poland that it abducted and tortured people at secret prisons in Europe. The fully documented report, filed by the European Parliament, is “biased and distorted,” the CIA said.

Cheney needs his pacemaker replaced. The batteries are going dead, and he could presumably follow. Nuff said.

Bush is over his hangover. “The president already was dressed when he began feeling ill in the morning, [Spokestool Dan] Bartlett said. He stayed in bed for several hours to rest and recuperate, missing one session with African leaders and another with leaders from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, all developing nations not G-8 members. Bush returned to the talks in time for the closing lunch, where he engaged in extensive conversation with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Paris Hilton is back in jail. And reportedly just thrilled to be there.

Houston Chronicle: Jail Libby Now

Trish

A call for immediate imprisonment of convicted liar Lewis Libby has come from a surprising source: the biggest newspaper in one of the biggest cities in the president’s home state.

Houston Chronicle:

Libby’s lawyers and supporters want Libby to stay out of prison while he appeals, which could take more than a year. [U.S. District Judge Reggie] Walton seems disinclined to go along, noting that people in Libby’s position, “where they have the welfare and security of the nation in their hands,” have a special obligation to be truthful. Libby failed to meet that obligation, stands little chance of having his conviction overturned and should start serving his sentence now.

Libby’s conviction and sentence is a fair outcome to a troubling chapter that afforded Americans a rare glimpse into the machinations of a secretive White House determined to go to war and to undermine its critics by whatever means available, even at the risk of putting covert operatives and their contacts in harm’s way.

O’Reilly Attacks an Evangelical – And Converts Me

Trish

Bill O’Reilly has done the impossible. He’s got me cheering for an evangelist who says homosexuals and people who don’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior are going to hell. Through the magic of O’Reilly’s utter foulness, I am now on the same team as Bill Keller, who according to the Tampa Tribune, “writes a daily devotional published on his Web site and e-mailed to more than 2 million subscribers. His live, call-in program is televised weeknights at 1 a.m. in the Tampa market.”

Keller: Going on O’Reilly “requires you are really prayed up surrendered”

Keller recently appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, taking the usual abuse and sanctimonious hot air from Bill, who tried to appear to be the voice of reason. The topic was Mitt Romney, whose faith Keller has consistently referred to as a cult (go Rev.!). His charge that a vote for Romney is a vote for Satan has Americans United for the Separation of Church and State asking the IRS to revoke Keller’s tax exemption.

Keller posted his reaction to being beaten up by O’Reilly on his web site, www.liveprayer.com. And he makes some good points. FOX, O’Reilly, and most of their viewers, he says, only pretend they love Jesus and the flag.

As “conservative friendly” and “Christian friendly” as FOX News tries to portray itself, it is still very much part of the world…Anyone who goes into that environment taking a Biblical position on the issues and telling people Jesus is the only way to be saved, immediately comes under intense fire. The world for the most part may believe in God, but they don’t honor Him, they clearly reject His Truth, and very few have really committed their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ.

In addition to speaking to an audience that for the most part rejects Biblical Truth, I was also dealing with exposing a satanically inspired cult that has done a masterful public relationship job of getting people, including many Christians, to believe they are “just another Christian church.” As I have stated often, the teachings and theology of the Mormon cult are completely inconsistent with Biblical Christianity…

[…]

Was Bush Too Hung Over to Work at G8 Summit?

Jon Ponder

The AP has a story online with the title “Illness Sidelines Bush at G8 Summit,” running alongside a photo of Pres. Bush relaxing yesterday with an amber-colored German beverage.

As is usual with our liberal media, we are left to put two and two together and draw our own conclusions, so here goes:

The president was already dressed when he began feeling ill in the morning, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said. He said doctors are keeping an eye on him but that Bush’s illness — whether a stomach virus, a light touch of food poisoning or something else — is “not serious.”

He stayed in bed to try to rest and recuperate, missing the morning session of the summit being held here of eight industrialized democracies.

Hey, it’s happened to the best of us — except most of us don’t officially claim to have been alcohol-free for the past 20 years old when we are afflicted by a hangover.

[…]

The Paris Hilton Case Gets Political – No, Seriously

Jon Ponder

The over-exposed celebrity’s “get out of jail” card threatens to ramp up into a volatile political debate about race and privilege in Los Angeles.


Rev. Al Sharpton

Free Paris! Word came late yesterday that the Rev. Al Sharpton is flying into Los Angeles today to speak with Sheriff Lee Baca about his department’s decision to release Paris Hilton from the county hoosegow yesterday.

Hilton spent three days in a women’s facility in Lynwood, but had many complaints about conditions in the jail — it was too cold and she didn’t like food for example. Her psychiatrist was called in because she feared she was near a state of nervous collapse.

As a result, Hilton’s sentence was changed from 23 days in jail to 40 days under house arrest in her hillside home in West Hollywood.

This change in her sentence has sparked outrage across the spectrum of demographic groups in Los Angeles, including among affluent anglos, but especially so among blacks and latinos.

One young African-American woman who apparently had been incarcerated at the jail told a local reporter that if she had complained about the temperature or the food, she would have been ignored — and that if she’d had a medical condition, they would have treated her in the jail’s infirmary and then sent her back to her cell.

Los Angeles has plenty of activists and spokespeople within its black and latino communities — including, just to name two, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Connie Rice, who is a codirector of the Advancement Project (and whose evil cousin is the U.S. secretary of state). Beyond these respected voices on racial matters and beyond, there are any number of city council members and other high officials who could speak for their communities on this issue.

But when an issue of race meets a bank of cameras and microphones, we must accept the fact that Al Sharpton will soon be parachuting in:

“I think that it’s both another glaring display of how race and money seem to get different treatments. There seems to be a different criminal justice system for some than others,” Sharpton said.

Judge Michael Sauer, the man who sentenced Hilton to jail after she’d been caught driving three times while her license was suspended for drunk driving, has called her back to court today and may send her back to jail. Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is also upset with the sheriff’s department for unilaterally changing Hilton’s sentence.

Finally, there is this. The L.A. County jails are experiencing a crisis of overcrowding. The truth is, a regular citizen — white, brown, black, rich or poor, infamous or not — who’d been sentenced to jail for a crime like Hilton’s would have been admitted, processed and then sent home, all within a few hours on the same day.

If this issue is going to explode in Los Angeles — and at 5:45 AM on Friday that’s where we appear to be heading — the truth is, if Paris had been treated “fairly,” she would have been released without ever seeing the inside of cell.

Update: Local news is reporting that the city attorney is threatening to sue Sheriff Baca over the change in Hilton’s sentencing.