That one’s no secret. It’s called spasmodic dysphonia, and she had to put a lot of work into rehabilitation to get to be understandable again after it set in.
But this wasn’t something she found just trolling around facebook on her own time, this was something that was posted on her facebook in the section set up for listeners to post their questions in real time. At the start of every show she says “If you want to join our conversation give us a call, send us an e-mail, follow us on facebook or send us a tweet.” Saying she should not include it because it came from facebook is like saying a call in show shouldn’t answer the phone because it could be a crank call.
As noted repeatedly in this thread, she has a medical condition that requires her to talk very slowly, and she usually very carefully sets out what she is going to say. She was in the process of explaining the situation (ie answering his question about where she got that) when a naturally upset Bernie talked over her. She clearly allowed Sanders to set the record straight and also prompted him towards saying that the entire list was a fabrication. I think part of the problem is that she speaks so slowly and deliberately that it makes this exchange sound more calculated than it actually was.
The latter. It might or might not have been a reasonable thing to say, but it was not anti-Semitic. N.B.: Anti-Zionist != anti-Semitic.
As TPM article said, that’s BS. And the listener on Facebook posted a question for her to ask. He didn’t post a list. That “list” she dug up herself.
It may not have been intended as anti-Semitic, but it was. It’s an accusation of divided loyalty that politicians with other ethnic/national backgrounds don’t have to deal with. For example, nobody asks Peter King whether he holds Irish citizenship, and he’s an actual honest-to-goodness terrorism fundraiser.
As I said previously, I am giving Rehm the benefit of my personal doubt because she doesn’t have a history of this sort of thing and she probably simply didn’t know about this particular dogwhistle. I didn’t either.
“It might or might not be the right thing to say”?
So you thinking that it "might be reasonable to say “Jews go back to Poland or Germany or wherever you came from”?
Do you agree with her claims that Congress and the media are controlled by “Zionists” and that Arabs are “the true Semites”?
Why is this thread about Diane Rehm now?
Yeah, could those of you who want to turn this into the 1000th Straight Dope thread on pernicious anti-Semitism please start a separate thread?
Does it matter? Seriously - it doesn’t. The percentage of voters who’d analyze Sanders’ policy proposals and try to decide for themselves whether he’s actually a socialist or not is what - 1%?
The other 29% will hear his self-identification as a socialist and go with that (for better or for worse, with most of them for worse). And the last 70% on election day will have no idea what he says or what his policies are but will push the D or R because that’s what they always did.
So we shouldn’t be discussing what the actual ideology of a politician is? What you said is applicable to virtually any politician.
Because you see- Bernie (nice as the man is) has about zero chance of being nominated (unless Hillary drops out), and less that of being elected (unless the GOP run a nutjob), but if you can show your candidate is being attacked by bigots, then well, that helps. So. Rehm now has to be made out as a bigot. :dubious:
It helps if you, yourself are bigoted against “Arab-Americans”. :rolleyes:
Of course. Because Bernie is “my candidate”! :rolleyes:
Well, no. Most politicians avoid self-labeling themselves in a way that they know will be negatively perceived by the majority of the electorate.
Which is why you will never, ever see a politician self-label as a Tea Partier.
Mitt “severely conservative” Romney agrees with you.
Because ninety-nine people wanted to talk about Bernie Sanders and his political platform but one person insists on telling us how all liberals are secretly Nazis.
And further, she is just the tip of the iceberg. In reality there is the vast anti-semetic under current that weaves through all liberals as demonstrated by this one short out of character exchange by a host on NPR.
I apologize for carrying this on far too long (I should have stopped back before post 115). But Rehm is one of the most balanced, civil and thoughtful interviewers and discussion moderators on radio today, ( I think of her as the anti-limbaugh) and I hate to see her name smeared by those who know nothing about her as something that is the entire opposite of everything she represents. I’ll drop it now.
In that poll, 51% of Americans view Tea Party unfavorably. And that’s a new low, supposedly. 60% of Americans view socialism unfavorably. And that’s probably better than a decade before.
So the public’s opinion of the tea party is going down while that of socialism is improving. Which can only be greatly helped by an actual professed socialist running for office and being appealing to many. While the tea party loses traction the more visible it gets and yet politicians ally themselves with it despite your claim.
I’m lost. Your point is?
We’re not discussing long-term people’s views. We’re discussing whether Bernie Sanders is electable. When 60% of the electorate views your self-label unfavorably, you’re not electable.