Is Making a Racist Remark Worse Than Wishing Someone Dead?

July 16th, 2009 6:48 PM

Is making a racist remark about President Obama's daughter worse than wishing a conservative talk show host would die?

Such should be asked of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann who on Monday was quite angered by some truly tasteless comments about Malia Obama posted last week at Free Republic.

Yet, back in April when Olbermann published a diary at the liberal website Daily Kos concerning his waterboarding challenge to Sean Hannity, the "Countdown" host wasn't at all outraged by the venomous attacks made on the Fox News star which included some Kossacks wishing he would die.

For those that can stand it, here's a sampling of such commentary:

prefer if you paid for Sean to be parachuted 

into rural Iraq without backup.  Shitbird vs. wild.

Give to netroots for the troops!

by bubbanomics on Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 09:54:37 AM PDT [...]

Nice, huh? Or how about these Kos Kids who want to urinate in the bucket that will be used:

Or how about this lovely sentiment:

 I'll throw in a grand if they end up trach-ing Hannity and he has to spend the rest of his life putting a finger over the tube in order to say 'it wasn't torture'...

It's often said that life is strange. But compared to what? --Steve Forbert

by darthstar on Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 09:46:18 AM PDT

Or this:

inanity

I've got a better idea. Let's just keep the water flowing until he goes limp, and the world is suddenly a slightly nicer place to live.

by sicsemtyr on Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 10:21:04 AM PDT

Now, these comments were posted almost three months ago, and are still up...in a thread created by Olbermann no less.

Did he enter this thread and chastise those making such remarks?

Not that I can see.

Did he contact Markos Moulitsas and complain about this behavior?

Well, if he did, the comments are still available.

Did he make Moulitsas the "Worst Person in the World" for allowing such commentary at his website?

Of course not.

Has he boycotted the site as a result?

Nope, he's written three diaries since.

As such, I guess in Olbermann's view, it must be worse to make racist remarks about Malia than talk about Sean Hannity's death.

Any questions?