Star Parker, Asshole of the Day for February 11, 2015

Ever since President Obama made the completely factually true statement at the National Prayer Breakfast that Christianity has been used in service of horrible violence and oppression, not just in Europe in the Middle Ages, but in America to support slavery and Jim Crow, the reaction from conservative Christians has been over the top ridiculous.

On Monday we called out Mike Huckabee for basically claiming Obama was a Muslim out to oppress Christians. But he was not the only one-- there was also Fox host Eric Bolling claiming that the number of killings "in name of religion" by non-Muslims stands at "zero." Yeah.

But then on Hannity the other night we had Star Parker go to a whole new place with her outrage:

"Verbal rape"? How so? In that she was forced against her will to hear facts? Or that her islamophobia was challenged without warning or her prior consent? What definition of rape is she using?

Is she suggesting that we must now warn people and get their consent before challenging their bigotry? If that's the case, then we need to have new procedures for lots of situations, such as

Because otherwise all those bigots and sexists might feel they too have  been "verbally raped". But none of that is true. This is nonsense. There is no “verbal rape” here. There is only her attempt to escalate her offended bigotry to something that sounds violent. I may have some patience for people using inflammatory words in an off-the-cuff reaction, but she’s been making the rounds, always saying “verbal rape”, so this is no accident.

So, for claiming that Obama's statement of facts amounts to "verbal rape", Star Parker is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Star Parker's first time as Asshole of the Day.

Full story: Talking Points Memo

Rudy Giuliani, Asshole of the Day for December 22, 2014

by TheDailyEdge (Follow @TheDailyEdge)

As Dick Cheney is to torture, Rudy Giuliani is to police brutality. No one has done more to create the problem. And no one is as determined to deny it exists at any cost. No one has done more to create the culture in which the cops New Yorkers hire to protect and serve them are somehow seen as "above the law" than Rudy Giuliani.

Of course, Giuliani's ghoulish, knee-jerk reaction to the execution of two NYPD officers by a deranged gunman in which he blamed everyone from President Obama to Eric Holder to Al Sharpton was, at this point, as predictable as it was disgusting. As anger has risen at the grand jury verdicts in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, President Obama has consistently denounced violence as unacceptable (as have other officials, including Mayor de Blasio). 

But it's worth reiterating the extent to which Giuliani's playing the "blame game" in a hypocritical, racially biased, politically motivated way. As Kevin Drum pointed out in Mother Jones yesterday, Giuliani's logic would make Sean Hannity responsible for the execution of two cops earlier this year by racist supporter of Cliven Bundy.... Bill O'Reilly responsible for the murder of abortion provider George Tiller... conservative talk radio for inspiring Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City... and the list goes on.

Rudy Giuliani likes to think he's "America's Mayor." But based on the divisive racial nonsense he keeps spewing, that's about as true as saying Cliven Bundy is "America's Rancher."

Today the AP announced that news editors had voted the police killings of unarmed blacks as the top news story of the year. It's a problem that must be acknowledged, talked about and addressed as Obama, Holder, and Sharpton have been willing to do. It's a problem that people have a right to protest for as long as it takes for change to happen and for justice to be served.

Three weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani was our Asshole of the Day for saying the black community is responsible for the crimes committed by blacks (something he has never suggested the white community is responsible for).

Now, for stepping into a tense situation in such a reckless and inflammatory way, he's once again Asshole of the Day.

Dick Cheney, Asshole of the Day for December 11, 2014

by TheDailyEdge (Follow @TheDailyEdge)

The world reacted with horror. The New York Times called the Senate report on CIA torture "a portrait of depravity." 

John McCain said: "The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless."

Dick Cheney, of course, has a different take, telling Fox News' Bret Baier in a Wednesday interview: "The report's full of crap."  Crap, of course, is too mild a word for what the report contains. As Vox.com says: "listing every horrifying detail in the Senate Intelligence Committee's summary report on the CIA's torture program would be impossible." They give 16 of the worst details here.

The Daily Edge doesn't often agree with John McCain but he's right when he says the Bush-Cheney torture policies "stained our national honor, did much harm and little good." 

As Slate points out, "there's no way Bush and Cheney didn't know what we were doing." And what we were doing included the same "war crimes" for which America hung Japanese soldiers after World War II.

For promoting and supporting these torture policies, and for still emphatically and unapologetically defending them--despite the fact they didn't work!!--Dick Cheney is for the 5th time, Asshole of the Day.

See his previous wins here.

Real or Satire?

Fox Reacts To Eric Garner Decision: Hope Nothing Happens In NYC. We’ve Got The Tree Lighting Ceremony

Real

Keith Ablow, Asshole of the Day for December 3, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

Apparently it's not enough for people on Fox News to just blame Michael Brown for his own death. I mean, everyone does that, so if you want to break through, you have to take it up a notch. And so here comes Dr. Keith Ablow:

So now parents should be indicted for the problems of their children, even after the child turns 18. That's what he's saying here.

Of course that's not the law. No prosecutor will indict him for that. Even Robert McCulloch wouldn't. Well, let's hope not. [Of course I say this and then I learned today that the grand jury in New York failed to indict the policeman who killed Eric Garner using an illegal chokehold, but the grand jury did indict the guy who filmed it!. Yes, this happened.]

But what strikes me here is that this is racist. Unless there's some example in the past of Dr. Ablow suggesting that a white parent be indicted for something an adult child did, it's pretty clear that he's just holding black people to this standard. Did he call for the parents of any of the recent white mass murders to be hauled into court to answer for their children's crimes? Nope.

So, for saying a grieving parent should be charged with crimes of their grown child, but only if they're black, Dr. Keith Ablow the Asshole of the Day.

It is Dr. Keith Ablow's fourth time being named Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for

Full story: Raw Story.

Bill O'Reilly, Asshole of the Day for December 2, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

Bill O'Reilly doesn't believe in white privilege even though he grew up in a segregated community that blacks weren't allowed to live in. But he says he's not a racist of course.

On Sunday some St. Louis Rams players came out using the "hands up, don't shoot" pose to show solidarity with protesters in Ferguson:

But Bill O'Reilly isn't having any of it, and says the players are too stupid to know what they were doing:

Yes, he said that.

Really, it's not hard. Hands up, don't shoot. The protesters have been using it for 3 months. It both shows anger at police shooting Michael Brown, who many think had his hands up when he was shot, and says to the police at protests that they are not posing a threat.

But Bill O'Reilly doesn't think the players are smart enough to get that. Is it because they're black? Or because they disagree with his worldview that racism no longer exists? Hard to say. But the answer doesn't really matter since both are enough to make him the Asshole of the Day.

It is Bill O'Reilly's fifth time being named Asshole of the Day. Previous wins include

Full story: Salon.

Ben Stein, Asshole of the Day for November 3, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

It's a common refrain from Republicans that either

One favorite point to argue is that Obama is the first black president, so therefore racism can no longer exist. It sounds good until you realize that it is advanced by people who didn't vote for Obama, hate him, but somehow think that a majority of Americans voting for Obama absolves ALL Americans of racism, even those still asking for Obama's birth certificate. The fact that some white people voted for Obama doesn't make Sean Hannity any more or less racist than he was before Obama's election.

But it's a new one to hear Ben Stein claim that Obama is the most racist president ever:

Most racist president there has ever been in America. And keep in mind that 12 of our presidents owned slaves, 8 while in office. Some promised to free their slaves on their death, but then didn't. Are none of those presidents more racist that Obama?

And 100 years ago President Woodrow Wilson brought southern style oppression of free blacks to Washington, DC. Segregating and denying good jobs to African Americans who had held them previously. Certainly any short list of most racist presidents would have to include Wilson.

But Ben Stein isn't interested in an actual reckoning of racism in America. He's just playing to privileged, conservative whites who want to feel free to cut any social program like food stamps that they perceive to be used more by non-whites, or to add poll taxes to limit voting by non-whites who can't afford the extra time and cost to acquire the needed documents. Or who think it is right to limit (or ban) early voting on Sunday which is disproportionately used by African Americans after church. By pretending that whites aren't racist any more, and that Obama and his party are racist for bringing up race, he tries to shift the conversation against the lingering evil of racism in this country, and thereby do nothing about it. He's fine if African Americans continue to suffer discrimination and economic and political loss if it means Stein's Republican party continues to hold power and influence. And for that, Ben Stein is Asshole of the Day.

It is Ben Stein's first time being named Asshole of the Day.

Full story: Talking Points Memo.

Keith Ablow, Asshole of the Day for October 17, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

Since Ebola is a bad thing, I guess it was only a matter of time before crazy racists started brainstorming for ways to blame Obama for it. They get pretty creative, though a lot of their criticism boils down to this, which I posted 2 months ago:

Leading the charge this week is Fox News' go-to psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow, who goes full racist conspiracy on Obama:

If this sounds familiar, it's because Glenn Beck said something similar back in 2009:

It's sort of amazing really-- that Obama doesn't love America or care about American lives, and yet he somehow endured two grueling campaigns, years and years of racist, birther taunts, and all for what-- a chance to make Americans die of the same diseases poor people around the world die of? That's what he's saying.

And he just knows this about Obama. He can peer into Obama's America-hating soul. Or maybe not. Maybe he's merely peering at Obama's skin color. That would be my guess.

And that wasn't the end of it either. After being criticized for this wild speculation about Obama as our Traitor-In-Chief, Ablow said today:

So, for saying Obama is happily letting Americans die of Ebola as part of some colonialism revenge scheme, along with a bunch of other racist, conspiratorial nonsense, Keith Ablow is Asshole of the Day.

It is Dr. Keith Ablow's third time being named Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for saying boys will be boys so girls shouldn't wear leggings and saying gay marriage would allow polygamy and bestiality.

Full story: Media Matters.

Eric Bolling, Asshole of the Day for October 3, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

We all know that if you take things out of context, they can mean the exact opposite of what they did at the time. And it's a long running trick in politics and other contentious areas to try to catch an opponent out of context so as to embarrass them in front of voters.

But there's pulling quotes out of context, and then there's ignoring the entire decade context that something happens in. A decade we were all there for and participated in. And yet Fox News wants us to believe that George W. Bush predicted the rise of ISIL:

Yep, they are pushing an old speech from 2007 as "proof" that Bush predicted the rise of ISIL if the US didn't keep forces in Iraq. Now it sounds convincing if you don't remember anything else or think about it even a little. But we have brains, so let's review how truly offensive this is:

Look, if Bush predicted/prophesized ISIL in 2007, then why oh why did Bush sign the agreement in 2008 for our troops to leave Iraq in 2011? The very deal Obama followed in leaving? Because that happened:

And no less than Dick Cheney was saying in 2004 that signing that agreement was a good idea. He touted it as an accomplishment:

So where's your prophet now, Fox News?!

Iraq, you may recall, didn't want us. And why was that? Bush. What Bush did. Barging in without a plan or understanding of the sectarian factions that would, once released from Saddam's iron grip, return to their fighting. There's even a quote from before the invasion where this happened:

So please, don't tell me that Bush predicted this. He didn't predict what happened-- he was on the freedom-on-the-march, greeted-as-liberators, mission-accomplished bandwagon. Fuck, he was driving the Mission Accomplished bandwagon. He never thought about the chaos that would ensue, or that he didn't have a good plan, or enough troops, or an exit strategy. And that speech was just to justify the Surge, which was to try to clean up some of his fucking mess.

So to say he predicted the rise of ISIL from this one speech justifying another prolongation of the war he executed so poorly, while ignoring that he caused Iraq to hate us and want us out, that he then signed the agreement for us to leave (against this "prediction"), well, nothing could be more ridiculously a-historical and stupid. But Eric Bolling isn't stupid, he is willfully refusing to connect the dots, and hoping you are too. And for that, Eric Bolling is Asshole of the Day.

Now Kilmeade and the rest of Fox News are all in on this ridiculous attempt to blame Obama for abiding by an agreement Bush signed, and then pretend Bush predicted ISIL. But we don't give group awards, and it was Bolling who made the most blatant "Bush was right statement", which is why we gave it to him.

It is Eric Bolling's first time as Asshole of the Day, though just one more asshole from Fox News, which has been featured here so many times.

Full story: Media Matters.

The whole thing is just so ridiculous. A month ago I satirized the people who keep trying to pretend that the mess in Iraq in general and ISIL specifically are the fault of Obama with my post A Quick Recap Of The Iraq War And Its Aftermath for those wondering how Obama messed things up. And here they are actually doing something very much like it. Why do they insist on living up to satire?

Eric Bolling apologizes and reveals what it will take for Fox News to stop being such assholes

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

Yesterday we highlighted the conversation on Fox News The Five, where Kimberly Guilfoyle was discussing her admiration for Major Mariam Al Mansouri, a Muslim pilot leading the bombing in Syria, and then Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld started making sexist jokes. We named Gutfeld Asshole of the Day, in part because he started it.

Well, there's an update: Last night Eric Bolling apologized on air for his part:

And I should point out that I haven't seen any reports that Gutfeld apologized on air, so I guess we picked the right winner.

And what does this tell us? Well, it's not like Eric Bolling's only prejudice is sexism. He says many awful things across a range of topics that only point out how much he believes in his own white male privilege. Just look at all the times he showed up on Media Matters on the topic of race baiting, poor bashing, sexism, etc.

But the only time he apologizes on air for being such an entitled, prejudiced boob is when he gets home and his wife glares at him.

So it appears the only solution for Fox News' bad behavior and bad attitude is for all the hosts to marry someone who is non-white, immigrant, poor, female, gay, disabled... well, you get my point.

Photo source: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/personalities/eric-bolling/bio/

Greg Gutfeld, Asshole of the Day for September 25, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

Republicans tell us there is no War On Women, and in fact just this week Ann Romney said that accusations of Republicans War on Women were "ridiculous" and "offensive". I guess she is ignorant of all the restrictions on birth control and abortion Republicans have pushed through the last few years, as well as their ongoing opposition to the Violence Against Women Act and equal pay laws.

Or maybe she just doesn't watch Fox News. Because if she had, she would have seen two male hosts mock a female pilot that a female host was praising:

Even their co-host wondered "why did they ruin my thing?" after.

Yes, we ask, why can't these men restrain themselves from shitting on a woman's achievement in an area that women have historically been excluded from? Why do they feel that on air on Fox News they can do this?

Because they completely lack any empathy for the struggles of women, or frankly anyone less fortunate than their white male asses. Their only point of view is their own.

It is reassuring that not only did Guilfoyle express her frustration with them but also that later so did Greta Van Susteren. We can only hope that someone breaks through and these two assholes think twice before doing it again. But it's Fox News, so we're not hopeful.

Now there were two assholes here, but we don't give out group awards. Of the two, Greg Gutfeld was first and his comment played on sexist stereotypes as well, so it he is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Greg Gutfeld's first time as Asshole of the Day, but one of many, many Fox News personalities to be featured here.

Full story: Talking Points Memo.

NOTE: This story was updated after readers pointed out that it's Gutfeld, not Gutfield, which was misspelled in Talking Points Memo, and which I picked up without noticing.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Asshole of the Day for September 17, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

For the last two years we have heard Fox News and Republicans repeatedly accuse Obama and Democrats of doing things to distract us from Benghazi, so sure they are that if we watched all 1,098 prime time segments on Benghazi that Fox News aired, that we would understand their need to drop everything and be outraged. And, yes, that 1,098 number is accurate-- Media Matters tallied it up, and that figure is only through May and doesn't include all evening shows.

Their pleas that "this is distracting from Benghazi" remind me of a small child who can't wait their turn and has to make it all about me, me, me, oh why o why aren't you paying attention to me.

But except for people who already hated Obama with every fiber of their being, the Benghazi accusations never justified all the hysterics. Yes, 4 people died. But it was 4 people in an unstable country. A tragedy, yes, but not Watergate. So in order to try to convince people of their point of view that this was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world, they have cooked up a million different wild conspiracy theories. Stand down order! Let them die! Out fundraising!

And yet they continue to fail to convince anyone. But no matter, they got the House GOP to vote for a Select Committee on Benghazi which starts today. And it's starting even though all 12 Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, which spent 18 months investigating and holding hearings on Benghazi, says there’s nothing more to investigate because there is no sinister wrongdoing. The House Intelligence Committee unanimously cleared the Obama administration of all wrongdoing.

And so it happens that in a week that was dominated by the Ray Rice story and discussions about domestic violence, that over on Fox News they were annoyed that it would cut into their non-stop Benghazi coverage. Which led to Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck trying to insert Benghazi into the domestic violence discussion:

After people criticized her for this, she then replied:

It is an honor to insert Benghazi into conversations about domestic violence. With that statement she is elevating the four lives lost in Bengahzi above the 11,766 lives lost to domestic violence over the last decade. But Fox News doesn't have any perspective about this. They don't care about all those people who die anywhere else.

And that, more than anything is why the Benghazi story never breaks out of the conservative news bubble any more-- perspective.

Fox News has become a parody of themselves on Benghazi. In 2007 Joe Biden mocked Rudy Giuliani saying "there's only three things he [needs] to make ... a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11." Today, as Elisabeth Hasselbeck proves, you could say a version of that about Fox News:

So, for dismissing the important national conversation about domestic violence and trying to steer it back to Benghazi with all Fox News's discredited accusations, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Elisabeth Hasselbeck's second time as Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for saying that rather than blame guns for a mass shooting, we should blame video games.

Full story: Media Matters.

UPDATE: After posting today, we got this comment on Twitter, which really sums it up nicely:

Donald Trump, Asshole of the Day for September 12, 2014

by TheDailyEdge (Follow @TheDailyEdge)

In some ways, Donald Trump is like any other racist moron who still can’t accept that America has a black President. In others, he’s just like an average Fox News viewer--an uninformed dolt who refuses to give Obama any credit for turning the economy around following the Bush crash and the worst financial crisis in 80 years. But unlike your average dumb racist, Donald Trump also plays the role of “successful businessman” in an elaborate con game he’s been working on the less-educated members of the populace for years. His idiocy goes unchallenged when he appears on the fact-free morning show Fox & Friends. And many of his 2.7M Twitter followers seem to be under the illusion that he: a) may still decide to run for President; and b) would be good at it. More than anything else, Trump is a proud and opportunistic asshole. So when news outlets reported that a Trump-owned golf course had denied President Obama a tee time over Labor Day weekend so as not to inconvenience its members, Trump seized the opportunity to milk the story and, yes, be an even bigger—and more disrespectful—asshole than his club manager had already been. He tweeted:

Needless to say, both the “lamestream media” and the RWNJ birthersphere took the bait. Too few, though, have pointed out the fallacy at the center of his offer. Obama leaving office would not be “a great service to the country.” Calling Obama an economic failure, which Trump frequently does, is something only a moron who told Americans not to buy stocks after the crash in 2008 —right before the greatest five-year accumulation of wealth in America history was about to begin—would do. In fact, Forbes recently crunched the data, and declared that Obama has outperformed even St. Ronald Reagan in terms of jobs, growth and investing.

For saying he'd offer up one of his golf courses as an incentive for a President he's lied about and insulted for almost six years to quit his job, Trump is Asshole of the Day.

This is Trump’s sixth time as Asshole of the Day. 

Steve Doocy, Asshole of the Day for September 8, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

When the video of Ray Rice assaulting his wife in the elevator first surfaced, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith suggested that women should try really hard not to get beaten. As though it's anyone's fault that someone beats them. ESPN suspended him, we named him Asshole of the Day. And hoped people would stop saying stupid things like this.

But then TMZ released the video today and it was a new opportunity for stupid comments, this time over at Fox & Friends:

Look, assholes, domestic violence is no joking matter. And laughing at the victim is pretty ugly.

And to Steve Doocy's first point, it doesn't matter whether she married him after this happened-- that doesn't excuse it or make it legal. But I suspect his point is to laugh at the victim for marrying Rice.

The really offensive part is where he says the message is to take the stairs, where there's no camera. Because then the domestic violence goes unrecorded. Even as a joke, this is way over the line. And that is why Steve Doocy is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Steve Doocy's first time as Asshole of the Day, joining a long line of assholes featured here from Fox News.

Full story: Raw Story.

UPDATE: Fox & Friends claims they do take domestic violence seriously. For about 13 seconds. We're not buying it.

Bill O'Reilly, Asshole of the Day for August 27, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

Bill O'Reilly has fought hard for over a decade against the "War On Christmas". To him it's very real and very important. He believes in the War On Christmas.

But last night he announced that he doesn't believe in white privilege:

The shorter version of this rant came from Vox under the headline "White privilege, in one Fox News screen grab":

If black men are harassed and shot by police, subjected to stops and searches when they are just trying to drive to and from work, but white men of the same age and income are not stopped, then that is white privilege.

In the current context of Ferguson, if Michael Brown was shot because the cop didn’t like how Brown responded to a jaywalking stop, but a white man is never confronted by a hostile policeman for jaywalking, then that's white privilege.

Changing their behavior won’t exempt them from traffic stops without any cause other than “driving while black”. Better manners won’t save them from suspicion. If a black teen smokes a joint and gets a year in prison but a white teen does not, then how is that not white privilege? Laws are enforced differently for them, and that adds up. And it’s out of their control. When you talk about “civil behavior”, the civil behavior for a black man is a different standard. Why can’t he have one joint and not be a convicted felon, having his right to vote and get good jobs taken from him for the rest of his life, when a white man doesn’t face the same consequences for the same action? Why is an African American teenage boy not allowed a few youthful mistakes but a white one is allowed them?

But Bill O'Reilly isn't stupid. He could figure all this out, or he could at least try to listen when even Megyn Kelly --yes, the same Megyn Kelly who claimed Santa has to be white-- tries to explain white privilege to him. But he just prefers not to. He prefers his state of ignorance. It's good for his self-esteem. It's good for his ratings. It's good for his paycheck. And it's also clear that he enjoys moralizing about the failings of African Americans and blaming Beyonce. And for that, he is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Bill O’Reilly’s fourth time as Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for

Full story: Media Matters.

And here's a good parting thought from Rex Huppke:

Linda Chavez, Asshole of the Day for August 25, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

When I heard that Fox News had a segment suggesting that referring to Michael Brown as an "unarmed teen" was misleading and "playing the race card", I thought it was a joke. I expected to see that it was on The Onion or Borowitz.

But then I saw the screenshot:

Sorry, Ms. Chavez, but the cop who shot him didn’t know about the robbery. Even the Ferguson police chief admits this.

So to the cop who shot him, Michael Brown was an unarmed teen.

Now, sure, there’s still a struggle involved, but even then, even if you buy the police story hook, line and sinker, how did the officer get into a struggle over jaywalking? Is the town of Ferguson that worried about jaywalking that the police are willing to get in a fight over it? And why did he need six shots? Six? Does that sound like a reasonable response to jaywalking?

But rather than entertain questions about how a police officer gets into a position where he's firing six shots at an unarmed man over jaywalking, Linda Chavez is more concerned that the media isn't portraying Michael Brown as a scary black man. And for that, she is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Linda Chavez's first time as Asshole of the Day, joining the many, many assholes featured here from Fox News.

Full story: Media Matters.

Shepard Smith, Asshole of the Day for August 12, 2014

by TeaPartyCat (Follow @TeaPartyCat)

There’s a long history of calling suicides an act of cowardice, and Fox News anchor Shep Smith added to it yesterday when reporting on Robin Williams:

But can you really call someone a coward who suffered from depression? Where does courage and bravery play in depression?

To call someone a coward means having to ignore their on-going depression, prior addictions which may aggravate it, and much more. To judge the actions of someone else without all the facts and call them a coward? That just seems wrong.

Smith has since apologized, saying in part:

Now, I don’t doubt his sincerity. And he says that he may have hastily used the word coward. Perhaps he reached to that word because culturally there’s a long history of calling suicide victims cowards and it just came out. But his apology was crafted and not spur of the moment, and there’s still a part missing. He’s very clear to apologize to anyone from Williams’ family who might have seen or heard that he said it. That’s nice, but that’s not really what I find offensive. Public figures will have people say things about them and judge them; Williams was a public figure for 30+ years and made tons of money and so people will say things.

Instead what I find missing is any apology for the idea that suicide is a cowardly act by those suffering depression. It’s insensitive to all the depressed people who entertain these thoughts. It’s insensitive to all the families of people who have lost someone with depression to suicide. Before depression was studied and understood better, not getting that connection was understandable. But it’s 2014. You can’t go around calling people suffering from depression “cowards” any more. And that is why Shepard Smith is the Asshole of the Day.

It is Shepard Smith’s first time as Asshole of the Day, but one of a long, long line of Fox News assholes.

Full story: Mediaite