We thought the op-ed about Glenn Beck published over the weekend by the Salt Lake City Tribune set a new low, but that was before we learned of this moronic editorial in the New Haven Register:
Meanwhile, though, the same basic message that the KKK has promoted for 148 years is embraced by the likes of Ted Nugent, Fox News, Ann Coulter, a burgeoning array of fringe “conservative” media and members of our own community commenting on stories on the New Haven Register’s website.
Nugent will be in New Haven Aug. 6 with prominent billing for a concert at respected local music institution Toad’s Place. He has brought the KKK’s traditional message to the mainstream — to the point of being embraced by the leaders of the Republican Party during the last presidential election campaign (against the re-election of a black president, it should be pointed out).
That message includes black people being an inferior race (note Nugent’s blanket statements that black people don’t work as hard as white people, are criminals, etc.), a fear of and opposition to immigration and expressions of disgust and hatred toward gay people.
The KKK has historically billed itself as a vigilante group, a concept that the gun-glorifying Nugent and supporters of George Zimmerman, “stand your ground” laws and the profiling of young black men in hoodies embrace as well.
So if you support George Zimmerman, you embrace the values of the Ku Klux Klan. Got it?
Twitter users gasped at the idiocy:
Recommended
@famblog @truthgunner. That's ok,They regularly compare "o" + Holder 2 Humans..Their "Exact-O-Meter" Alien Detection equipmnt is Broken!
— Amy MooneyhamHolland (@newmoonrisin) August 1, 2013
.@newmoonrisin @famblog What rocks do these sleazy New Haven Register group crawl from. Prob in some black cesspool
— Truth Gunner (@TruthGunner) August 1, 2013
New haven register is pure trash. See you in history! Lol
— Clint (@mstate413) August 1, 2013
The New Haven Register is UNAMERICAN&FULL OF MANURE.
— Hunter L (@goosehooter) August 1, 2013
Yesterday, the Register apologized to Fox News, but the paper sure isn’t apologizing to Ann Coulter, Ted Nugent, or the other conservatives it smeared.
An editorial published by the New Haven Register on Monday has generated controversy for drawing a link between the traditional message of the KKK and statements made by people who have been given a platform by Fox News and other organizations that would like to consider themselves “mainstream.”
We did not intend to compare Fox News specifically to the KKK and we should have done a better job clarifying that when we said that the “same basic message that the KKK has promoted for 148 years is embraced by the likes of Ted Nugent, Fox News, Ann Coulter, a burgeoning array of fringe ‘conservative’ media.” It was a poor choice of words that created an unfortunate comparison between Fox News and the KKK. We’re sorry for that. We did not intend to make any such comparison. This comparison should have been more specific to Nugent’s and Coulter’s views and statements about people of color, immigrants and gay people, and to be clear, was relating that to the ideology of the KKK, not its abhorrent history of violence.
We stand by our criticism and call for Fox News to challenge and condemn the hatred and racism advocated by guests such as Ted Nugent and Ann Coulter instead of continuing to give them a platform.
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post rightly calls B.S.:
When you invoke the KKK, you invoke the entirety of the KKK, its ideology, its terror, its violence, its history — everything. KKK analogies may not be safely circumscribed. After all, attempting to cleave the group’s ideology and “abhorrent history of violence” is a bit untenable considering that ideology generally drives strategy.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member