I have one small disagreement with your argument…was it said in a nasty tone? Yes. However wasn’t what he was pointing to be one of the worst impulses mankind has? Does it do an advanced civilization any good to sugar coat or intellectualize a hideous truth? I think not. In any case, they should have have reprimanded him and apologized to the Romney’s for the tone. But should have stood behind him regarding the substance of the statement.

Fair enough; I’m just mildly dissenting from the proposition that Yahoo! should not have apologized to the Romneys for Chalian’s remark because other people (or entities, like “the Romney campaign”) have not apologized to President Obama for various awful things that other people have said about him.

The Romney campaign has been chronically blind to the optics of how their actions, particular in relation to his wealth, look to the rest of America. I have no doubt that, if we see a repeat of the Katrina disaster, they would continue partying.

That said, Chalian should have kept such remarks away from the microphones and live feeds. He’s hardly the first reporter to get caught speaking “off mic”, but it wasn’t professional.

But demanding a general apology from an entire category of people, for types of things that random people within that category have said, in response and/or comparison to a specific statement that a specific person actually did make at a particular time and place, is a tactic that our friends in the paracosm engage in a little too often, and I don’t particularly care for it.

I’m not actually calling for an across-the-board apology.

I’m just making the point that the Romney campaign has disrespected minorities over and over, making Yahoo’s apology seem overly gracious and, from my perspective, unnecessary. It’s not like the Romney’s didn’t earn their reputation.

I’m still waiting for the apology for saying the NAACP wants more free stuff, for referring to President Obama as a welfare, affirmative action president, and for endorsing a budget that would obliterate the social contract.

These are terrible things to say and I condemn anyone who has said them. But demanding a general apology from an entire category of people, for types of things that random people within that category have said, in response and/or comparison to a specific statement that a specific person actually did make at a particular time and place, is a tactic that our friends in the paracosm engage in a little too often, and I don’t particularly care for it. If Yahoo! or Chalian himself had said these things, then we might have a point about there being a double standard. But this strikes me as analogous to our response to specific statements of this nature by specific Republicans or Republican enablers being greeted with and excused by, “Liberals said bad things about Bush” (or “Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a c**t, so liberals must apologize to women and have no business criticizing Republicans for mistreating women.”)

“They’re not concerned at all” is fine, but “happy to have a party when black people drown” is kind of an awful thing to say. Whether we think it’s probably true/accurate or not is beside the point. I’m not saying he should have been fired for it, or even that the apology was appropriate. But let’s be honest; that’s a nasty remark.

You’re absolutely right about the freakout that would occur if the Obamas and not the Romneys were on that Cayman Islands-flagged yacht during a hurricane. The folks in the paracosm have made an art form of hysterical, unhinged freakouts about things that are neither outrageous nor controversial nor unprecedented.

“Romney opens Indiana event with weather joke” http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/08/romney-opens-indiana-event-with-isaac-joke-133691.html?hp=t3_3

That the birther movement took hold and was treated with any credibility in the media just offers us a glaring view into what is considered ‘journalism’ these days.

That being said, this was a huge and unprofessional error that will cost a good guy his job.