JudeanPeoplesFront:

Paul Rosenberg, who wrote about the blackface picture: "No reasonable argument can be made that this image was racist in intent, or that Jane Hampshire [sic] harbors any racist attitudes."

I would like to thank you for instructing black people on the correct way to interpret this. Blacks, in my experience, are unable to determine for themselves whether an image is racist, and they're also unable to determine whether a person is racist. So the fact that a man of your erudition has deigned to give your wisdom to those simpletons...well, it brings a tear to my eye. Truly.

That is a rather exuberant way of putting it, I admit. Maybe you do have a reasonable argument that 2+2=5. So maybe I should have put it another way.

But one thing is most certain: I did not say anything about "whether an image is racist," I talked about intent. And I did that quite deliberately, because the evidence I introduced was evidence about intent. I am extremely familiar with the fact that racism has to be judged by its effects. I have made this point in different internet venues on numerous occassions.

This is, in fact, one of the reasons why black leaders like Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton campaigned for Ned Lamont against Lieberman--because the effect of Lieberman's politics (regardless of intent) was harmful to blacks (and thus, arguably racist), not because he was intentionally trying to hurt blacks.

And this is precisely what Jane apologized for--if her actions had an effect that was out of line with her intent.

So, really, what I want from you is simply to prove that I'm wrong. Show me a reasonable argument the image was racist in intent.

Not a garbage shooter242 argument. A reasonable one.

JudeanPeoplesFront:

Did you try "racist" and "Jane Hamsher"?

I won't keep you in suspense: 39,300.

Does that mean anything? Of course not. I just wanted to point out how useless and biased your "quick-and-dirty results" were.

I chose specific terms that would give a rough thumbnail sense of how widely certain stories had spread. You substitute a general term, which is much less suited to tracking a specific story, and unsurprisingly come up with a larger number. (399,000 hits for "Joe Lieberman" and "racist"--proves just as little.)

As I said, it is a quick-and-dirty method. I never claimed otherwise. But using specific--rather than general--search terms to get the sorts of results you're interested in is hardless "useless." If it were, Google would not exist.

As for your claim that you've shown my results were "biased," that I can't refute. Because I can't even understand it.