Stupid as stupid gets

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150083,00.html

Let Paris Have 'Em
Friday, March 11, 2005
By John Gibson

American Lance Armstrong (search), the five time Tour de France (search) winner, dissed his home country, the U.S.A., Wednesday when he jumped on the French bandwagon to bring the 2012 Olympics (search) to Paris.

New York is also vying for the Olympics, and the New York newspapers howled that Armstrong is a traitor — particularly the New York Post, which is owned by the same company that owns the FOX News channel. The Post called Armstrong the axle of weasel — a take off of its famous axis of weasels headline about the French anti-Americanism just before the Iraq war.

I don't speak for all New Yorkers, but I speak for a few when I say Armstrong is right. Paris is the perfect place for the Olympics.

Why? Because I'm tired of big, high security events in New York. They're just too draining. We all walk around on eggshells. I always carry a gas mask for instance. And we're always worried about big events attracting whack jobs that want to blow something up.

So you know what? Let the whack jobs go to Paris in 2012. New York really doesn't need more of that, and Paris hasn't had quite enough of it as far as I'm concerned.

Remember the Republican Convention here this summer? Nothing happened — owed mostly to the New York cops and the Feds, who shut everything down and developed some innovative schemes for dealing with troublemakers.

But Olympics? A couple weeks of events all over the area? Super security in place everywhere you go — everybody on edge and nervous? Excuse me, I've had my fill for a while. This sounds more and more like a Paris thing. They like all those terrorists anyway, and I'm sure they'll all be nice and cozy together for a summer of Parisian Olympic fun.

So let's cut American Lance Armstrong some slack. He's had cancer. He's won five Tours de France. Sheryl Crow is gaga over him. He has a real good idea.

When it comes to a huge pain in the rear-end event like the Olympics, Paris deserves the headaches and the troubles way, way more than we do here in New York.

So I say: "Let 'em have it."

That's My Word.

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Someone in a position such as his on French television would get fired for saying something like that about Americans.

France has suffered from terrorism before and will again, this is an insult to all the victims, of past attacks from Islamic groups in the 80s and 90s, and their families.

And isn't it ironic that the French are now tagged as "terrorists lovers" (btw, why?) when it's the CIA that financed and trained Bin Laden.

And Armstrong won SIX Tour de France, get your facts straight.

Ponrauil

Look at the source. This isn't most rebutable paper in the area. Not to mention the fact that these "opinion" pieces are not exactly the most reliable sources of information. It is one person's thoughts, which most certainly does not represent the majority. I am sure every country has their share of crappy editorials.

As much as I have no love lost for most of mainland Europe and one of my hobbies is letting them know it, I'd never hit out with anything as stupid as this.

I worry about the world at times. Idiot's saying let's hand Paris the Olympics so they can get blew up and I just read a dude on another forum saying since rape laws are hard to prosecute, taking a womans word should be made legally standing he was sweidish btw

It's not the paper I'm on about, it's that guy from Fox News that said "Paris should get the Olympics so it can be bombed, since we like terrorists anyway."

Not on nationwide, if not worldwide, tv channels that present themselves as serious news media, no. As a matter of fact, in France, someone in his position saying this publically would be : 1 - fired, 2 - Publically orally condemned by the whole political class and 3 - trialed, and most probably sentenced for "hate incentive" (not sure if I translated this properly).

And I wouldn't feel sorry for him one second.

Ponrauil

I am utterly shocked at this article. How dare someone say such a nasty thing! The French are terrorist lovers?! Now that's just beyond stupid.

It's just an article, someone's opinion for heaven's sake. The French press had/has plenty to say about the U.S. What's the problem with it? No matter how much Bush pushes international relations, there is still hostility there. Just as I'm sure anti-Americanism is alive and well in France. Forget about it, it's not a big deal.

Free speech can be a double edged sword.

It's one thing to be anti-american/anti-french and call americans/french stupid/liars/cowards/etc... it's another thing to wish american/french deaths.
Such a thing would never happen on any of the most important tv channels in France, and if it did, it's author would suffer the logical and deserved consequences I mentioned earlier.

And again it's not just an article, it was a speech on tv, and not on an ordinary channel but on Fox News, who's word is taken seriously by a lot of people.

And therefore must be used wisely and carefully, and most of all must not be abused of when you're in a powerful mediatic position such as this guy is.

Ponrauil

Oh, I agree with you, but there is a fine line between freedom of speech and censorship. You would hope that this person who is in this powerful position would choose his words wisely, but he has the freedom to say whatever floats his boat. People just have to take it for what it is, utter crap.

This isn't freedom of speech, it's speech anarchy in my book, as one's freedom that goes against others rights is no less than a priviledge.
To be true freedom needs equality, I wouldn't be pissed about this as I am if someone had had the same air time to respond.
There he is taking advantage of his priviledge, of his position and of the possibility to nail his extremism into millions of brains and in too many of them generate, reveal or provoque hatred against other people. Today the French, yesterday the Gay community and tomorrow aborting mothers...
Should this be tolerated in the name of free speech? Imo it shouldn't be tolerated in the name of tolerance, respect and democracy.

And I won't even start on deontolgy, something any (real) journalist lives and works by.

Ponrauil