Randi Rhodes UPDATE: Mixmaster-Media Ignites
Oct 16th, 2007 | 19 responses
New York Daily News.com is reporting:
Air America host Randi Rhodes wasn’t mugged
See this story, plus fact check at end of article.
BY David Hinckley and Tina Moore
Tuesday, October 16th 2007, 12:28 PM
There’s no truth to the rumors that Air America host Randi Rhodes (above) was mugged near 39th St. and Park Ave. Sunday night. She is scheduled to return to the air on Thursday.
Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily off the air, but claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today.
Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy.
“Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?” he asked on the air, according to Talking Radio, a blog. “Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?”
A police source said Rhodes never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging. Cops from Manhattan’s 17th Precinct called her attorney, who told them Rhodes was not a victim of a crime, the source said.
Rhodes’ lawyer told the Daily News she was injured in a fall while walking her dog. He said she’s not sure what happened, and only knows that she fell down and is in a lot of pain. The lawyer said Rhodes expects to be back on the air Thursday. He stressed there is no indication she was targeted or that she was the victim of a “hate crime.”
Rhodes started with the Air America when it launched in 2004. Her show airs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.
The network released a statement that said Rhodes “experienced an unfortunate incident.”
“The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded,” the statement read by a receptionist at the network’s New York offices said. “Ms. Rhodes is looking forward to being back on the air on Thursday.”
Still, the tale lived on in the blogosphere.
“What the %$#$ is WRONG with you people?? Are you that SICK in the head that just because you don’t agree with someone’s political views you believe that they deserve to be mugged? Are you on the right that DEMENTED??,” a blogger called neddlenosehanty posted on watchingthewatchers.org.
Another blogger shot back, “I very seriously doubt if this unfortunate woman was mugged by a conservative. To jump to the conclusion that she was mugged by someone on the right is bigotry of another kind. Think not?”
_________
Clarification/fact check from Dr. E on the NY Daily News article re ‘tale living on in blogosphere,’ and ‘blogger’. The original story published by the newsblog watchingthewatchers.org reports only what a fellow radio peronality said / speculated about Miss Rhodes; no speculation about conservatives or other by the journo. The two NY Daily News quotes from watchingthewatchers.org are the opinions of two commenters to the seemingly neutral reportage on the Randi Rhodes story there.
Here’s the original piece from watchingthewatchers journo Rogers Cadenhead: http://watchingthewatchers.org/news/1311/air-america-host-randi-rhodes-mugged
See our earlier post which reported the original reports, gave background on talk show hosts who’ve been in the news in the past due to attacks and gives a wide cross section of left, right and centrist blog reaction to the initial report.
19 Responses to “Randi Rhodes UPDATE: Mixmaster-Media Ignites”
[...] NOTE: See our updated post above HERE since the New York Daily News is reporting that Rhodes was not mugged. We’re leaving up the [...]
A cautionary tale for the blogosphere.
Don’t go off half cocked. It’s not absolutely necessary to comment on any event within 10 minutes of it’s occurance.
Lol, seriously.
This issue reminded me yet again of this passage from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, written in 1943, I believe. It sums up current political discourse better than anything else I know:
“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t so bad as that,” or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if allowed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black.”
Paca-
CS Lewis susms it up exaxtly.
Thanks for the quote.
[...] Original post by New York Personal Injury Attorney – Google News [...]
It’s not a huge leap to jump from viewing conservatives as those for whom ‘lying is second nature, if not first’, who make up the most corrupt Administration in history, who trash the Constitution and who stop at nothing to get their way to accusing them of committing violence. C’mon, if the GOP was willing to steal the 2000 and 2004 elections, beating up a woman who dares to speak truth to power is no big deal. Once you tell yourselves enough times that the right hates women, especially women with brains, it’s a small step to figuring they’re no longer satisfied with abusing women verbally. Since the right obviously isn’t happy limiting themselves to violating our civil rights on a daily basis, it makes sense that they’d turn to beating up their critics.
False story, but accurate… because every conservative is a potential mugger. If they haven’t yet turned to beating up their critics, it’s just a matter of time.
I guess Steve has not only taken the first step, but a couple of dozen others as well.
I think SteveS is channeling Evan Thomas and Nancy Grace on the Duke Lacrosse Team “rape” of a stripper—if the narrative fits his delusionary universe, it’s got to be true. It’s an old leftist trope on its permanent bad trip which in clinical terms is called “mass psychosis.”
Remember Rigoberta Menchu who won a Nobel Peace Prize for fictional police-state accounts she presented as facts. SteveS is already there
Some just son’t stop. (see djman)
We could be in for a long list of who did what on the Left anf on Right, since the Left and Right were invented.
There was a time when reading the blogs was fun because of the sleuthing/debunking atmosphere that prevailed.
It has gone from a focus of fact-checking to “everyone is a self-declared expert” on everything.
Case in point……..where’s the bloggers that are digging behind the scenes to get the real scoop instead of being content to just rehash speculation that, if you think about it, accomplishes nothing but using up bandwidth.
Re: djman comment on Rigoberta Menchu another good example of the truth being a little more complex than your black and white assertion.
Good synopsis of the Rigoberta Menchu “controversy”
The researcher who discovered “inconsistencies” even agreed that her story was essentially true and that news stories about the problems he found were sensationalized. She kept her Nobel as none of the “inconsistencies” challenged the veracity of the story as a whole. The link relates some of the issues with the story and some of Rigoberta’s responses. Of course now a story that even the researcher with questions agreed was an accurate account of this time period in Guatemala has become a “fictional account” at the hands of djman1141 who spent how much time in Guatemala during this time or did how much research on what he labeled a fictional account?
By the way, I had never heard of Menchu until I read that post and it took about 20 minutes and the ability to use google to gather some relevant facts.
“Rigoberta Menchu who won a Nobel Peace Prize for fictional police-state accounts she presented as facts. ”
just a mention here: just last week, I was speaking with persons who work with several of the peace prize winners and asked them about that matter. Apparently there was a man who made a great deal of money attempting to impugn RM without, as I understand it, speaking with others
intimately connected to her, her family or the circumstances.
My inveriewee told me the man has been discredited in several ways. I was not writing about RM’s story however, but about the Burmese Peace Prize recipient, so I did not pursue details. But now reading that the old slur is still thought to be true by some still, perhaps looking into the matter of the man, ought be a story for another time.
just .02 here. about left and right bashing. Sometimes, I think it is my/our fault for not asking good enough questions or putting out interesting enough thoughts to give people something else to focus on.
At the same time, being 6 months new to blogging and not sure of the exact lay of the land yet, I’d also venture to say that sometimes it seems like a cowlick, no matter what I say or do, no matter how cogent, gentle, harsh, direct, subtley (however you spell that word) or otherwise make a point, some peeps jump right back to ‘first position’ to their favorite basher or bashee philosophy.
On the other hand, as I hope you know from my comments how much I and others of my cobloggers appreciate all the things I/we learn from you, and we subsequently are encouraged to keep trying to ‘fight the good fight’, and find in agreement often with those who comment.
That part of blogging is so good and most of the time, also reliable.
I hold out hope of drawing people into deeper discussions, but also know that thinking has become a luxury in our world, for it takes time, and people surrounding who will allow you to say /write, first second and third draft forms to get to what you really think… beyond the intiial irritation or knee-jerk tic.
I think tmv is a place for that kind of thinking, and all are warmly welcomed to ‘say whatever’ but also to try to see/ say deeper… and see what they really think, and how many useful ways there can be to usefully transcribe our complicated, i mean really really complicated world (s).
For some of us, it’s plural. lol
dr.e
The Not Really a Story of the Day…
Air America Host Randi Rhodes did not get mugged. But in a few short hours a story that she did get mugged, took off like wildfire across the blogosphere with bloggers on both flying off the handle.
Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily o…
Dr. E,
I helped my daughter research Rigoberta Menchu for a presentation for her Girl Scout troop a few years back. My understanding of the story is that after brought forth evidence that certain elements of Menchu’s autobiography weren’t historically accurate, she came forward admitting that she had embellished by including stories of other survivors as though they’d been her own experiences. Here’s a NYT link on that.
And from my understanding, Stoll’s criticism of her account was not as harsh as some have portrayed it- that his researched actually verified most of the substantive parts of her book.
Plus, the Nobel committee has said that her award was not for the book itself, but for her later work in helping refugees.
I do think that there are some elements of the whole saga that tend to stir up controversy (a story that was truthy but perhaps not altogether true- and the relative ease with which people from various perspectives would then either believe the story in it’s entirety or look at it with a fine toothed comb to discredit it). As usual, there are usually at least three sides to every story.
hah, I just realized my explanation for having any credibility on this issue sounded rather lame. I actually included the info about my daughter giving a presentation in order to say that I’m not claiming to have done a dissertation on the topic or anything- but I had enough interest to do some layman’s level checking on the story.
“there are usually at least three sides to every story.”
agreed!
I’d some days, say ten, and one-thousand
I think re RM, in another ten years perhaps earlier the entire thing will be reopened and then we will see. There’s a dearth of first order info, with much “so and so told so and so that Stoll said
and that Rigoberta said… My sense is someone someday will write on it again from an aerial view.
I like your first name, very beautiful symbolic name.
dr.r
I will add too, that when I spent a week in Guatemala in 2001, my sense of the situation was that RM’s story was pretty accurate, even if it was a conglomerate of stories. Certainly there’s no doubt that the prolonged civil war there was a horrendous time, which took a lot of innocent victims and terrorized the population. I don’t get the sense that there were any good guys in the govt or the organized guerilla resistance fighters.
Dear C Stanley, I can just see you in large animal husbandry helping in Guatemala, and learning too. I lived in Guatemala and El Salvador in 67 an 69, working and learning. The situ then was so deeply hideous with the USA involved, and corporate interests and in Guatemala especially, it was, at the time, one of the few central American countries then left with a huge number of indiginous peoples that since have been utterly utterly decimated. There were cross-hairs we barely escaped. Guatemala deserves an encyclopedia without end to record all its complex layers and agonistas. I am glad you were able to be there.
dr.e