The Huffington Post has no shame. In an item titled "What Fox News Channel Would Have Done to Rosa Parks," Cenk Uygur pulls a what-if as slimy, vile and calculating as they come. Using the Cindy Sheehan coverage as a jumping-off point--Uygur says "the conservative attack machine is in high gear in the efforts to tear this woman down"--he imagines what media coverage of Rosa Parks would have been in the Civil Rights era, if cable news had been around then:
"O’Reilly: 'Rosa Parks claims she speaks for all of the African-Americans in the South, but in fact, we have found two African-Americans who say they disagree with her. They say she’s just trying to gain publicity and doesn’t speak for anyone in her race. They would know, they’re black.'
"Hannity: 'Could Rosa Parks be angling for a Senate run? What does she have to gain from her public stand? Coming up next, the incredible story of how this woman might be deceiving the whole country!'
"O’Reilly: 'To question the government of Alabama and implicitly the entire United States government by defying the political order like this has to be considered treasonous. Civil disobedience is a code word for I hate America. These people are criminals, simple criminals. It's ridiculous that they think they don't have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.'
"Scarborough: 'Yeah, whatever they just said on Fox News Channel! Well … I mostly agree with it.'
"Kaplan: 'Can we hire Shep Smith to cover this? Maybe give him his own show?'"
"Coulter: 'Rosa Parks is a dyke!'"
Where, oh where, should the apologies begin?
Uygur's bio describes him as "“Part Howard Stern, Part Howard Dean" and boasts that his radio show "presents a smart, funny and irreverent take on why you shouldn’t vacation in Fallujah."
I'd love to know how both Howards--thoughtful, intelligent, decent men, no matter how you feel about their entertainment value or political views--feel about being compared to a racist little snot who thinks that Rosa Parks, and by extension the entire struggle for civil rights, can be glancingly used as a vehicle for self-promotion.
And who, exactly, does he think will find the Fallujah vacation stuff funny or compelling? The parents and widows of dead Marines and security consultants? Is Travelocity offering some package deal tourists need to be warned away from?
Uygur owes Rosa Parks, America itself, and everyone lampooned in his post an apology. He won't do it, of course. But that doesn't mean that all the people mentioned in his post shouldn't try to get one.
