Re Ashley Todd

[tablesaw]

I should be going to bed right now, but my mellow has been harshed.

If you don't know the Ashley Todd story, here's the AP article on yahoo.

And now, I hand it over to Melissa McEwan:

This thread will not be used for making disparaging remarks about the young woman, who is quite evidently extremely troubled and in need of help. Nor will it be used to try to cast her as emblematic of women, the rightwing, or young Republicans. That's not to say she did not do something very seriously wrong; it was criminal, and it was racist, and it was dangerous for a whole fuckload of reasons. Let's just be careful in our commenting that we bear in mind she is clearly in psychological distress and doesn't "prove" anything about any group.

As for the people who tried to use this story to score political points, whether it was the rightwingers who were howling about evil Obama supporters on the presumption it was true, leftwingers who were (and are) howling about McCain supporters on the presumption it was false, men who were (and are) howling about women on the presumption it was concocted, or women who were howling about physical attacks on women being the inevitable result of Obama's nomination on the presumption of its veracity—a shameful display all around, really.

And I'm going to add, since I've seen it happen twice on my friends page, that using a picture of a woman with a bruised, swollen face to score the same political points multiplies the reprehensibility.

Bed now. Don't make the thread explode please.

Comments

[thefreak.livejournal.com]

Is it not allowed to mock the possibly insane? At least I didn't harp on that Fox News quote that doesn't even have a place in the whole conversation.

:)

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

It's allowed to mock the possibly insane when they work for Fox News, yes.

[thefreak.livejournal.com]

Well, she didn't, but I will mock her anyway. Oh, and since it was the McCain campaign that called all the reporters ASAP and told them of this horrible 'tragedy' I think it's safe to say this is a political issue, as well.

[fmi-agent.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[prettyh.livejournal.com]

Wow. I hadn't heard anything about this. I've been avoiding CNN like the plague, and we don't get Fox News up here unless we pay extra for it (not gonna happen!), so...wow.

I'm not American, and I'm still semi-young enough to not have seen very many presidents in my lifetime, but I think it's safe to say that this election will go down in the history books as having incited the weirdest, most extreme actions ever seen.