Why does the "news" media keep putting this racist, anti-Semite on the 
air?
Obvious reason; He gets all screaming and flustered, and creates 
controversy.
And that adds up to ratings.
  
Donohue used "gook joke" in debate about purported anti-Catholicism

Summary: 

In the last week, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for 
Religious and Civil Rights, one of the most vocal critics of the hiring 
by John Edwards' presidential campaign of two bloggers who Donohue 
characterized as "anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots," has been 
quoted by The New York Times and the Associated Press, and interviewed 
by MSNBC and CNN over the controversy. But as Media Matters for America 
noted, Donohue's history of controversial comments and inconsistent 
outrage was largely ignored in the coverage of the controversy.

On September 25, 2002, Donohue appeared as a guest on the now-defunct 
MSNBC talk show Donahue, hosted by Phil Donahue. Donohue appeared on the 
program with Andy Hao, who was then a sophomore at Columbia University, 
to discuss a joke Hao made at the 2002 Liberty Cup, a football game 
between Columbia and Fordham University. In a September 19, 2003, 
article on the annual game, the Columbia Daily Spectator, Columbia's 
student newspaper, reported that at the 2002 contest, the "Columbia 
University Marching Band, long known for its clever and often off-color 
jokes, made one that eventually gained national media attention." 
According to the Spectator, Hao, who was the "Marching Band Poet 
Laureate," "referred to 'Fordham tuition going down like an altar boy,' 
angering many students and fans from the Jesuit Catholic-run 
university."

Donohue subsequently appeared on Donahue with Hao to discuss the joke 
and promised to "demonstrate that the kid's a phony." Donohue then added 
that he had mentioned a hypothetical to Hao earlier that day on a 
different MSNBC program: "[W]e could hypothesize that there'd be a 
Columbia University pingpong team made of Asians, and somebody goes out 
there and says 'All gooks go home.' " Donohue finished his demonstration 
by asking: "Now, what's wrong with a gook joke?" After Hao responded 
that "the gook joke's completely irrelevant," Donohue stated:
"All I'd 
ask for you is show the same degree of respect for Catholics as you 
would for Asians. You don't like the gook jokes? I don't like them, 
either. So just wise up." After a commercial break, Donohue returned to 
his argument and asked: "What about the gook jokes? I want to know, why 
don't you have a sense of humor about gook jokes?"

On February 13, the website Crooks and Liars posted a transcript of the 
exchange. 


From the September 25, 2002, edition of MSNBC's Donahue: 

DONOHUE: Look, the kid's a phony, and he proved that to me --

DONAHUE: Well, don't start calling names on me right out the box here.

DONOHUE: Well, no, no, no, no. I will demonstrate -- I will demonstrate 
that the kid's a phony.

HAO: All right, let's do it.

DONOHUE: I dealt with that --

HAO: Bring it on.

DONOHUE: Look, just hold on here. You had your time. Look, the kid's a 
phony, and here's why: I dealt with him earlier today on an MSNBC show, 
and I said we could hypothesize that there'd be a Columbia University 
pingpong team made of Asians, and somebody goes out there and says, "All 
gooks go home." So I asked him about my gook joke. And guess what? 
Andy's sense of humor just collapsed. He found that offensive. You see 
what you are? You're a phony. You're a typical Ivy League little brat 
who thinks it's OK to dump on Catholics, but you don't like my gook 
joke. Now, what's wrong with a gook joke?

HAO: Can I respond?

DONOHUE: Yeah.

HAO: All right. Here's the thing. I mean, first of all, it's completely 
a false analogy.

DONOHUE: No, it isn't. You attacked my religion!

[crosstalk]

HAO: I would like to speak.

DONAHUE: Bill, Bill, let's behave like Catholics here.

[laughter]

HAO: I mean, the gook joke's completely irrelevant, while the Catholic 
joke is a satire of an event that's going on. The gook joke's just 
throwing on racial slurs. I mean --

DONOHUE: Oh, let me tell you something --

HAO: Your members and your Catholics should be very proud of you.

[crosstalk]

DONOHUE: No, let me tell you something. We can go right down the line. 
You want to talk about Asians? We can do it with Jews. We can do it with 
African-Americans.

DONAHUE: All right, let's --

DONOHUE: Everybody knows the dirty laundry in every other group. And all 
I'm saying is this: Civility should rule. You ought to know that. You go 
to a fancy school. All I'd ask for you is to show the same degree of 
respect for Catholics as you would for Asians. You don't like the gook 
jokes? I don't like them, either. So just wise up.

[...]

HAO: Behind the argument in your joke, you're saying that if it offends 
somebody or here -- you call it uncivil. It shouldn't be said. But where 
do we draw the line? I mean, if it offends somebody, should it not be 
said?

DONOHUE: Common sense and --

HAO: How many people should it offend?

DONOHUE: -- and common decency should know that you don't generalize 
from the individual to the collective. We know there's a problem in the 
Catholic Church. We know there's a problem in a lot of --

HAO: Well, that --

DONOHUE: -- demographic groups and institutions. What is wrong is when 
you generalize from one group to the other. I used to be a professor. 
I'd like to teach you, kid. You might learn something.

DONAHUE: You know, I tell you what --

HAO: Nothing good from you.

DONOHUE: Oh, you'd learn a lot. You'd learn about virtue.

HAO: For Catholics.

DONAHUE: You know, you're being very patronizing to the young man.

HAO: That's exactly right.

DONAHUE: And I don't think we're going to -- you know, he doesn't have 
to do a perp walk here. He's not going to jail for this.

DONOHUE: Nor should he. I never asked for that.

DONAHUE: And you know, I think if you just relax, move on -- we can't 
expect our culture not to -- there's a thousand jokes that are stemming 
from the Catholic Church's scandal.

DONOHUE: Let me -- let me tell you something, Phil. Phil, I watch you 
all the time because you're so good. You really are. I want to tell you 
something. Two nights ago, you had Reverend Jesse Jackson on. He's 
complaining and gets excised for DVDs.

DONAHUE: True. Barbershop, the movie.

DONOHUE: Barbershop. Exactly.

DONAHUE: Yeah.

DONOHUE: Now, you -- you raised the issue of censorship.

DONAHUE: I did.

DONOHUE: But you -- see, because you're sensitive to African-Americans 
more than you are to Roman Catholics, and that's certainly true of this 
guy.

[crosstalk]

DONAHUE: I'll tell him when he comes in.

[crosstalk]

DONAHUE: We'll be back in just a moment.

[...]

DONAHUE: Your reference to oral sex and the Catholic Church scandal in 
your -- as the poet laureate, made people crazy. Here's what --

HAO: Made some people laugh too.

DONAHUE: Made -- you make --

DONOHUE: A lot of bigots laughed at it.

[...]

DONAHUE: How are you instructed by this, Andrew? Did you have any idea 
that this kind of -- you know, it is a dormitory joke, and you brought 
it right out there in front of Mom, Dad. You may have had some 
grandmothers there.

HAO: I think it's a joke that should be out there. I mean, people have 
to have a sense of humor. And every joke you bring out, some people 
aren't going to get it.

DONOHUE: Yeah, like the gook joke!

[crosstalk]

DONAHUE: If you joined us late, you're not -- you don't know what we're 
talking about. One of the references in -- as he announced to the whole 
crowd at the football game, whose tuition is going down?

HAO: Fordham.

DONAHUE: "Fordham's tuition is going down" --

HAO: "Like an altar boy."

DONAHUE: -- "like an altar boy."

DONOHUE: What about the gook jokes? I want to know, why don't you have a 
sense of humor about gook jokes?

HAO: I mean, I -- what I'm saying is --

© 2007 Media Matters for America

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