Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Instapundit and the "Wild Eyed People of Idaho"

I want to thank Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit for linking to my post.  Also a big shout out to Left Coast Rebel for linking.  If you haven't been to visit Left Coast Rebel  --do so.   He consistently turns out quality material with great thought and meticulous research, and is one of my first stops every morning. 


 I was led from a tip on Instapuntdit to this ridiculous article from the The New York Times; Tea Party Movement Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right, by way of an article by Ira Stoll.

The New York Times article quotes  some "person of color" who lives in this area as being "afraid to attend a tea party event".  Let's take a look at what she said:
Rachel Dolezal, curator of the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d’Alene, has also watched the Tea Party movement with trepidation. Though raised in a conservative family, Ms. Dolezal, who is multiracial, said she could not imagine showing her face at a Tea Party event. To her, what stands out are the all-white crowds, the crude depictions of Mr. Obama as an African witch doctor and the signs labeling him a terrorist. “It would make me nervous to be there unless I went with a big group,” she said. source
And now lets hear what Mr. Ira Stoll has to say in reference to the New York times article:
The whole thing is sad; that the Times seems unable to give a reasonably sympathetic hearing to Americans mad at Wall Street, Washington, Republicans and Democrats but instead travels to Idaho to interview and emphasize what it depicts as a particularly strange group of them; that those Americans angry at both political parties would channel their anger toward immigrants; that minorities would feel intimidated by Americans mad at Wall Street, Washington, Republicans and Democrats. The Times doesn't get into the question of how anti-immigrant and how heavily armed the average non-Tea Party-activist Idaho resident is. Nor does it get into the fact that a certain set of wild-eyed true believers who don't appear normal to outsiders tends to exist on the fringes of just about every mass movement, from the AFL-CIO to the Obama campaign. source
 To be fair, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit does a remarkable job of "reporting the news."  His site is primarily one of compilation and links and we appreciate all his hard work.  And it appears Mr. Stoll is feeding off this New York Times article.

But I need to make some things very, very clear about where I live!!!

The areas depicted in these articles - Spokane, Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene, is where I have made my home for over 22 years.  First off, I have no idea of what Ms. Dolezal is referring to when she claims she would be "nervous" to attend a tea party event in my home town of Post Falls.  I've been to these tea party events and have never witnessed crude signs or crude behavior.  I have, however,  witnessed many "people of color", and none of them appeared the least bit nervous. 

To back up my point, take a gander at the photos the New York Times published as a slide-show with their article.  You will not see "wild-eyed true believers", as Mr. Stoll has labeled us.  You will see rather normal looking people exercising their right to protest a government run wild.

This meme about North Idaho has been going on since before I moved here, due to a very small group of people who called themselves "white supremacists" camped out in Hayden Lake, a bit north of Coeur d' Alene.  The MSM has consistently made it appear as though this compound of wackos, which incidentally has been gone for a good number of years, was comprised of  hundreds of fringe lunatics.  The truth is there was never more than 10 or 15 people hanging out acting stupidly. 

Mr. Stoll continues with "The Times doesn't get into the question of how anti-immigrant and how heavily armed the average non-Tea Party-activist Idaho resident is." Perhaps, Mr. Stoll, you might ask instead  how many people hunt in North Idaho.  It's a joke around here that on opening day of hunting season the entire region almost shuts down because of people calling in sick to work.  People who hunt usually have guns.


I find it particularly amusing how the New York Times describes Liberty Lake, WA as "a small town on the Washington Idaho border" as though it's some mecca for single-wides and outside plumbing, when in fact it is extremely up-scale community which also happens to have indoor toilets.


My question for Mr. Stoll is this:  Have you ever actually been to North Idaho?  If you have, I'd sure like to know where you hung out while you were here.  If not, I'd like to know why you have made such patently untrue statements with no basis in fact.  It appears that you, as a resident of New York, simply read the New York Times article and decided to expand on what was untrue to begin with.  That's a lousy way to run a blog.


Update:   I understand Mr. Stoll is on the side of the tea party movement and is taking the NYT to task for what they wrote and for that I thank him.  However, he does nothing, IMHO, to disabuse people of the notion that people in North Idaho are wild-eyed crazies who are bereft of indoor plumbing.  Now I need to be excused to go visit my outhouse (which I might add is a two-holer)

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Adrienne--

Please re-read Ira's piece. He is the guy who invented the blog Smarter Times, which was a precursor of sorts to the New York Sun. (Smarter Times basically bashed the NYT for bias and errors on a daily basis for a year.) I'm pretty sure he's on the side of the tea partiers, and thinks the Slimes article is as bad as you do.

--Fresh Air

Anonymous said...

The folks at the New York Times couldn't find the L train without help...

Alexander D. Mitchell IV said...

North Idaho shuts down for the first day of hunting season, too? Heck, I thought we were odd ducks for having the FDOHS off from school back in central Pennsylvania some years back......

Scot from Oregon said...

Gosh, I wonder what ridiculous generalizations we could come up with about New Yorkers? Are they all ultra liberal? Do they all hate and fear middle Americans? Are they all rude? I personally know that none of those stereotypes are true, but then I bothered to go there and SEE FOR MYSELF.

Adrienne said...

anon - I did read and fully understand Mr. Stoll is on the side of the tea-party folks. He should have been more careful to make his generalizations of North Idaho not so general so as to almost give credance to the NYT hit piece implied.

Adrienne said...

Alexander - hunting season is BIG here.

Adrienne said...

Scot - so true. I find New Yorkers to be quit polite and helpful. But I had to go there to find that out...

Belial said...

Wow, way to misread a post. Try rereading the Ira Stoll thing.

mbabbitt said...

I used to be a true believing liberal and the thing that stands out most to me now, as a conservative, is how the press is often nothing more than a slander machine against anything Republican or conservative. Their stereotyping and bigotry is so entrenched in their minds that they should recuse themselves from any reporting of conservatives, Republicans, and anyone not from large urban centers. The liberal press is incapable of treating these groups fairly. These elites are simply run by their unexamined prejudices and they continually recycle their poisoned perspective to their readers, who usually believe the same thing anyway.

JorgXMcKie said...

Hey!! He's from New York. He gets mugged regularly. I know this because I guy who once dated my sister told me this is how New York is. Also, it's on fire most of the time due to raging riots, and there's a couple of dozen murders every night. Also, all the convenience stores get robbed two or three times a day.

CosmicConservative said...

The NY Times is not reporting the News. They are trying to generate a public reaction to Tea Parties that satisfies their agenda. The NYT ceased operating as a news organization many years ago. They are now nothing but an arm of the liberal propaganda machine. And that's what they are doing here, propagandizing the Tea Party movement to try to marginalize it.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I wouldn't be holding by breath on that one. The NY Times doesn't debase itself by fraternizing with the hoi-poloi. You just shut your mouth and listen to your "betters" dear, while they continue to drive their circulation off the 10,000 foot cliff...

ic said...

We have potato pancakes with our tea.

Anonymous said...

I think you are being a little too harsh to Mr. Stoll.

After reading his blog post, I got the feeling that he was disagreeing with the NYT's depiction of Idaho.

Maybe I was reading him wrong.

Anonymous said...

"Gosh, I wonder what ridiculous generalizations we could come up with about New Yorkers? Are they all ultra liberal? Do they all hate and fear middle Americans? Are they all rude?"

Yes.

At least the ones that live in Manhattan or west Brooklyn, and are at least 2nd generation. Extra pinko points for secular Jews, folks with assumed African names, Columbia students, and idle noblesse-oblige WASPs.

I lived in NY for over 30 years, and went to school k-12 there, I know of I speak.

sarainitaly said...

My guess is that Rachel would never attend a tea Party anyway.

Regardless, if she did want to go, not sure why she would be "afraid" of the "angry white people". She is a beautiful woman, but I wouldn't peg her as ethnic by looking at her. (not that it would matter because the tea parties aren't "all white" anyway).

http://www.thefigtree.org/dec09/120109hreicda.html

I think she has more to be afraid of with the hate crimes directed at her work, than the tea parties. Perhaps that's why she is afraid? She's projecting? More likely she watches msnbc...

ID Kate said...

WOW! An Instalanche in our little neck of the woods! I'm one of those wild-eyed Hayden, ID residents with the stigma of having been the home to the Aryan Nations to boot. We shall overcome, my friend.

Old Bob said...

Years ago I had a friend who was going to grad school at Columbia U. He characterized New York as the world's largest ghetto - meaning that New Yorkers think theirs is the only city worthy of the name in the world.

submandave said...

"Though raised in a conservative family"

Note, there was no claim that Ms. Dolezal was conservative or, as another pointed out, that she would have any desire to attend a tea party. Her comments, IMHO, are far more indicative of the image created by the MSM and accepted as accurate by those inclined to believe the worst about conservatives. That her family may have been conservative is of no value in evaluating the accuracy of her perceptions WRT tea parties.

Adrienne said...

Welcome ID Kate - Always happy to meet another "bitter clinger" from Idaho ;-)

Uncle Fred said...

Why would ANYONE give any credence to a NYT article anymore?

Anonymous said...

shhh!!! Why are you giving secrets away. Do you really want these people coming here instead of Colorado? And, no I don't mean "people of color", I mean ignorant bigots who make up their mind about a place they have never been based by what they heard or read one time. Let them believe we are wild-eyed crazies with guns - it helps keeps the true small minded bigots out!

And for any of you highly intellectual elites who may be thinking, hmmmm.... maybe Idaho isn't so bad, let me assure you of this: This state is FULL of conservative Christians with many, many guns. You will feel unsafe and unwelcome here. Boulder Co is a very nice place. I recommend it highly.

Adrienne said...

anon - LOL!!! And I did have that worry when I did this post.

Listen everyone - everything anon said is true. Go to Boulder!!

David said...

but, it says right here that Rachel Dolezal is full of courage. http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/30533

Makes me wonder why she would tell the NYT that she is afraid to go to a Tea Party in the middle of the day. Oh my.

Anonymous said...

As a former resident of Bergen Co. NJ whose parents always scored seasonal Met Opera tickets, I claim Spokane is a good deal--wonderful symphony and venues, safe, good skiing, no traffic and the fly fishing in Idaho is legendary.

Anonymous said...

I grew up in southern Idaho. I now live on the East Coast, and wish I were in Idaho. When we retire....

Anonymous said...

"Gosh, I wonder what ridiculous generalizations we could come up with about New Yorkers? Are they all ultra liberal? Do they all hate and fear middle Americans? Are they all rude?"

As someone currently living in New York, I second otiswild. The answer is yes, yes and a thousand times yes.

OK, they aren't all rude all the time. And they may not know there is a middle America (or even anything between Manhattan and the Hamptons) to fear it, but otherwise, yes.

TMLutas said...

I grew up in suburban NYC and let me tell you nothing's stranger than seeing somebody who gets that liberalism, US variety, is wrong, wrong, wrong, and wants to support its decent enemies but has nothing to pattern on but descriptions of conservatism from the NY Times. This happens more often than you might think.

AnarchAngel said...

As it happens, we're moving up to Sagle in about six weeks... In large part because we LIKE the people up there.

And the lack thereof in comparison to much of the country...

And the attitude towards government that the NY times folks are so afraid of...

Anonymous said...

Back in the late 80's I came across a NYT article on some non-political subject for which I had a good depth of prior knowledge. The author gave largely incorrect information to the reader. After a few more instances of the same where my own knowledge proved the NYT was misinforming its readers, I finally decided that I couldn't trust them to infom me on topics that were new to me.
Now I read it once in awhile for the humor I find in its uninformed self-righteousness.

Anonymous said...

I'm in Seattle, but spent the first 30 yrs of my life in Eastern Washington and Idaho. I'd eat the 80 grand loss on my home and drive as fast as I could to Idaho if only my wife would come with me. MY biggest fear is that I will have to grow old and die in Seattle :(

Left Coast Rebel said...

I am glad that you wrote this! Linked at the Left Coast Rebel. http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/2010/02/new-york-times-anti-tea-party-piece.html

Packrat said...

I like the idea of being wild eyed. Scares people away. (jk)