Make Mine the Pooh Pooh Platter, Please: In DEFENSE of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir
by John F. McCarthy

When is a mouth rinse not just a mouth rinse?

Answer: When it is scatological in nature and nationally televised on MSNBC.

Bad behavior is rewarded every night on our favorite premium TV shows like “Nurse Jackie,” “Weeds” and “Boardwalk Empire.” Why not on one-sided televised political “debates”? If you are watching MSNBC you are not really pining to hear Sarah Palin’s side of any story anyway.

But Joe Gandelman was obviously correct in calling out Martin Bashir for saying that the founder of Palinism should basically eat sh– and LIVE for a comment that equated slavery with the national health care system.

Still, Gandelman’s piece “Martin Bashir Crossed The Line” left a bad taste in my mouth. And here’s why.

We live in an America where it is OK for rappers to attempt to dehumanize women as “ho’s” and “bitches”- as Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur and Eminem do – along the way to dropping the n-word and f-bombs of mad media messaging that carpet bombs our sense and sensibilities.

We live in an America where I can be watching the Super Bowl Halftime Show with my religious 87-year-old neighbor when he asks me: “Did I just see Janet Jackson’s boob? Or do you need to take me to the ER?”

We live in an America where when you go to see a recreation of Wild Bill Hickok’s murder ten times a day in the Black Hills of South Dakota and people around you are disappointed when the cast doesn’t throw in an f-bomb or two like they did to good effect on “Deadwood.”

So although Martin Bashir may have been the end of sleepytime for Michael Jackson after his well-publicized and audience-leading ABC News interview that attracted millions. He is not known to be a muck-raking yellow journalist. He got Quentin Tarantino to explode. But he never opened Al Capone’s vault to see if there was any loose change or victim’s bones buried in it.

He is British! He knows Urdu and converted to Christianity! He went to King’s College in London for crissakes! These folks apologize in their sleep and say sorry when your crumpets are soggy at High Tea.

So Mr. Bashir’s statement was a one-time-only faux pas, while the bad word blitz of American rap music is a daily full-scale assault on the essential human decency that is the foundation of our civilized society. It is a purple passion play that is re-run every day on U.S. television shows that should concern every man, woman and child in this great country.

Where is the far right when movies like “Poison Ivy” are released and foster sequels?

America’s most famous arts critic New York Magazine’s Jerry Saltz curries favor with Jay-Z and Kanye West when their new CDs “drop” in New York City – fiddling his right-word fine art reviews – and correct jaundiced viewpoint of High Urban Gear while modern-day America – as Rome – burns.

By not calling out these present-day media moguls such as Jay-Z and Eminem (President Obama admitted to owning and listening to a Marshall Mathers CD – see how the worm turns when we start cherry-picking what is appropriate and what is not appropriate for adults to listen to and watch?) we seem to be saying that it is OK for rappers to verbally abuse their African American sisters in their talking, not-singing “art” – but it is NOT all right for a dark-skinned man to “bragadocc” that Ms. Palin was wrong to mix the African Holocaust into a potluck dinner discussion of what is the best possible health care system.

My opinion is that Bashir was correct to throw a red flag at Palin’s half-smart, ham-fisted slavery allusion. As was Mr. Gandelman when he said that Martin Bashir had gone a bridge too far.

But what bothered me the most was that Bashir began on the high moral ground – to equate the black genocide of slavery with needed health care reform was worthy of TV scorn indeed – but Bashir fumbled the ball by asking Lady Nome to rinse twice before brushing.

Or however one makes a turnover in rugby or cricket.

With his foot in his mouth, Bashir slipped from the high ground.

But Palin herself hasn’t taken the first step at the base of Mount Bashir.

John McCarthy is a freelance journalist, fine artist and Realtor who lives in the Virgin Islands.