THE DAILY BLADE: Can Cafferty, CNN: Chinese
Some 1,500 Chinese Americans protested outside CNN's offices on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood - a similar demonstration also occurred at the cable news outfit’s Atlanta headquarters – demanding that commentator Jack Cafferty be fired over these comments he made on “The Situation Room” April 9th:
“We continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export … jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with
“It's really unacceptable. It maliciously attacks all Chinese. This would not be accepted if it was directed at any other ethnic group,” John He, an activist told the Los Angeles Times. Said John Chen, another activist: “Most of these people are American citizens and legal resident aliens. We love
In a statement, CNN explained that Cafferty's comments were directed at the
Jack was offering his strongly held opinion of the Chinese government, not the Chinese people. It should be noted that over many years, Jack Cafferty has expressed critical comments on many governments, including the
The Stiletto is no fan of Cafferty’s, but it is clear to any fair-minded person that he was talking about the country’s leadership and not its citizens.
That said, one could argue that the Chinese people themselves are intoxicated with nationalism and instead of leveraging international attention to bring about change from within, they either tacitly approve their government’s human rights abuses or are actively furthering them – despite the wishful claims of one Sue Meng, a Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law School student who writes in an op-ed published by The Washington Post:
[T]he Chinese government is one thing; 1.3 billion Chinese people are another.
It is important not to conflate
Unfortunately, the facts on the ground tell a different story:
† Chinese hackers took down CNN’s Web site in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and mainland China, and its staff received threats as the network “appears to have become a proxy for what many Chinese see as Western media bias that villainizes China just as the country prepares to make a global splash through its hosting of the summer Olympic Games in Beijing,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
† The New York Times reports on grassroots efforts by Chinese students and others “stoking a popular backlash against Western support for
† The Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON) reports that the Chinese government’s state-run news agency is hyping the anti-torch protests to create an “us against them” dynamic:
There is mounting evidence - in Internet chat rooms, on the streets and everywhere else where public opinion can be measured - that the Chinese Communist Party has gained popularity and strength as a result of the violence and chaos of the past month.
It might be facing an Olympic opening ceremony boycott and mounting criticism from abroad, but the government has largely succeeded in mobilizing its 1.3 -billion people into a unified force, giving it the domestic legitimacy it craves for its survival.
“Thanks to the protests, the Chinese Communists may have consolidated support by its citizens for years to come,” says Roland Soong, a shrewd observer of Chinese politics who runs a blog analyzing the Chinese media. …
“In a crisis, the nationalist card is one of the most potent that the government can play,” said Willy Lam, a long-time China watcher and political analyst based in Hong Kong.
“If you read the Chinese websites, there is a campaign of hatred against the Tibetans,” he said. “I think it works. It enables the leadership to divert attention from the mistakes that they have made.”
And for the record, those “tall, tough-looking young Chinese men in blue-and-white running gear” guarding the Olympic torch on its 130-day, 85,000-mile “Journey of Harmony” – paramiltary-trained volunteers from the People's Armed Police – have been called “thugs” by the government of Japan, Sebastian Coe, and others. The Australian government has warned Chinese embassy officials that the guards will be arrested on the spot if they lay a hand on a single one of its citizens during the torch relay.
Danica Rules!
Danica Patrick, 26, is the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race, blowing past two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves by nearly six seconds in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 in Motegi. The New York Times reports:
Three drivers ahead of her had to stop for fuel late in the race, and Patrick took the lead from Castroneves on the 198th of 200 laps.
Patrick, the 5-foot-2, 100-pound driver who moved to the powerful team co-owned by Michael Andretti last year, won the third race of the IndyCar Series season. She credited her team for implementing the fuel strategy she needed to win the race.
“Finally! This is a long time coming,” she said in an interview in Victory Lane. “It was a fuel-strategy race, but my team called it perfectly for me. I know I was on the same strategy as Helio and when I passed him for the lead, I couldn’t believe it. This is fabulous.”
Indeed it is! Congrats and kudos to Patrick.
Editorial Note: The Stiletto is a huge fan of motorsports of all kinds (the Pocono 500 was a family tradition – along with breaking trails in the woods with dirt bikes in spring and summer, deer hunting in autumn and snowmobiling in winter – that kept her and her siblings from becoming bitter during that portion of their childhoods spent in the Scranton area), and has never outgrown her own need for speed.
Jack Cafferty is a biased hack ... instead of being an objective journalist, he's consistently chosen to be in the tank for Obama. When McCain wins in November, Cafferty and the rest of the media cronies who have tried to cram Obama down our throats, will all be irrelevant.
Reply to this