Vile Wisdom

Yesterday I wrote a post characterizing Deb Frisch's recent comments at Protein Wisdom as despicable.I also wrote that they weren't actually threats, and she shouldn't lose her job because of repulsive comments.

A lot of commenters here thought that I was rationalizing or overly parsing - that the comments really were threatening. Many blogs from the right asserted that she was in fact threatening the child of the author at PW,  Jeff Goldstein.  Some argued that she should be held "accountable," others that she should lose her job, while others thought she deserved jail and/or bodily harm for threatening a two year old.
Blackfive wrote that she "repeatedly and quite disturbingly levied DEATH THREATS against Jeff's 2 year old child."

Gulf Coast stated that she "is threatening a two year old child." Sierra Faith chimed in "Most importantly, this sick person is threatening the life" of a 2 year old.
Right Wing Nation claimed she was "threatening Jeff Goldstein's child." While Right Wing Nut House said "Short version: Frisch made a series of what can only be termed threats against Jeff and his two year old son. The threats were both violent and sexual in nature." A piece entitled "Arizona Psych Professor Threatens Life of Two Year Old" was posted by Caos Blog. Lilac Rose sympathized with Jeff's having to endure "vile threats against his child." MarkinMexico wrote of her "hurling death threats and sexual innuendos." (I think he might have hurt Goldsteins pride with this one - he likes to think he's the best sexual innuendo hurler in town.) Moonbattery prefers labelling Frisch as the one who "threatened a conservative blogger's two-year-old child with sexcual abuse and death."

 

To put it bluntly, all of these bloggers knowingly were posting lies. What Frisch said was vile, but in no way threatening. After his website was shut down for a while, Goldstein wrote that never felt threatened nor "victimized."  He allowed Frisch to comment for a few days because he hoped that she would "show her ass." He wanted her to make a fool of herself, and to make her seem unbalanced. He succeeded. He does "not want apologies." It was a game to him – a vile, manipulative game. That's all. Because he played the game better than she did, he'd love a bottle of tequila as a victory prize. He also implies that she might have been drunk when she made her stupid comments

Before calling Deb Frisch's employer to register a "complaint," presumably about her threatening a two year old, Froggy of Blackfive talked with Jeff Goldstein.

Again, I make no excuse for her horrible words. But she is no longer employed – in large part  because a lot of  wing-nut bloggers wrote to her employer accusing her of threatening a 2 year old.

Goldstein’s behavior can only be characterized as despicable. He has allowed someone to be punished for an act that he knew did not happen. Apparently, he sat back and chuckled as his fellow wing nuts tried to get Frisch fired for threatening his child, although he knew there was no threat.  I'm not surprised by Goldstein's cruel dishonesty as I have seen his m.o. before. But a lot of bloggers, and a lot of commenters at my blog, also were lying about what was happening. They claim to be outraged  that a child was threatened, when they know it never happened. Why? I don’t understand what excitement and pleasure they get by trying to destroy Frisch’s career.  As Goldstein put it – she’s the kind of woman who has too many cats.
 

I realize that the Republican party relies on smears, lies and vile manipulation to remain in power. I recognize the swiftboating, the accusations of treason, the phony outrage over leaks, for what they are. But the only explanations that I can see for destroying a part-time college teacher’s career is simple cruelty, or a desire to maintain those skills which they need to remain in power.  An election is coming, and they must keep their knives sharp.

Comments

[deb]

Thanks Bustard. There's even more to be said about the vileness - BlackFive posted the dept head info. I'm not sure if any of the other rightwingnut blogs did. He got 300 emails on saturday about me.

Even though I resigned from the UA on Saturday, donors are still calling the president threatening to withdraw their donations. I DONT WORK THERE ANYMORE, WINGNUTS. YOU CANT FIRE SOMEONE WHO HAS QUIT.

It was like CALLING ALL WINGNUTS: WE'VE GOT A WOUNDED MOONBAT PROFESSOR. Please drop what you are doing and help take this uppity dyke bitch DOWN.

Ironically, this issue - the blogosphere challenger disaster - will call attention to:

a. how utterly nutty the rabid right blogosphere is
b. stay at home dads shouldn't spend all day posting as count cockula. This guy should not be a stay at home dad. Google satchel goldstein to see the icky blue dress daddy's made for junior even though the kid is only two years old.

Poor Satchel. Imagine how he will feel in kindergarden when everyone in the class googles themselves.

Mrs. Cockula REALLY needs to google Satchel ASAP.

[Fred Thompson]

Isn't it depressing to spend the time writing a post defending this woman only to have her show up and display her sick obsession for JG's child?

[Dave]

How unsurprising that Frisch herself was the first to comment.

As for you, blogger ... with all due respect, your post is the only lie.

Why not post Frisch's ACTUAL WORDS - and let your readers decide for themselves whether her words were threats?

It is painfully embarrassing when ideological blinders trump common sense and human integrity. Post her words. Post them all. Let your readers decide.

[Dave]

In fact - I'll do the work for you and hand you some of Frisch's most cogent comments.

Unfortunately, some of her best work is missing from what follows ... like her inquiry into the toddler's "orifices." Yes - her word. "Orifices." Nice, right?

"I’d like to hear more about your “tyke” by the way. Girl? Boy? Toddler? Teen? Are you still married to the woman you ephed to give birth to the tyke?
Tell all, bro!"
***
"[...] as I said elsewhere, if I woke up tomorrow and learned that someone else had shot you and your “tyke” it wouldn’t slow me down one iota. You aren’t “human” to me."
***
" Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.
Are you still married to the woman you humped to produce the toddler? "
***
Give your pathetic progeny (I sure hope that mofo got good genes from his mama!) a big fat tongue-filled kiss from me! LOTS AND LOTS OF SALIVA from Auntie MOONBAT, if you don’t mind!
Somehow, Jeffy boy, I think you get off on the possibility of Frenching your pathetic progeny, even if it is a boy. You seem like a VERY, VERY sick mofo to me, bro.

[bbbustard]

Thanks for the comments - I did link to Blackfive who listed all her comments. They were repulsive, inexcusable and abhorrent. I'm surprised that you want to repeat them. But they were not threats against the child's life. Even the folks at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler are admitting to "hyperbole." I just don't think people should lose their jobs because of "hyperbole."
As you know Jeff never felt threatened or victimized, even though he argued yesterday that his child was "a victim," which is totally incoherent. The Republicans today seem to believe that the ends justify the means. If they think a teacher should be fired, it's ok to lie about what the teacher did. If they want Bush to win in a Carolina primary, it's OK to lie about John McCain's having a black bastard child. This kind of lying is a bigger threat to a free democracy than Russia ever was.

[Dave]

BBBustard:

With all due respect - this has exactly zero to do with politics, even less to do with partisan politics, and a 6-year old election couldn't be less relevant.

What IS relevent is a 2-year old child.

I just want to clarify something - perhaps you can clear it up for me:

If YOU had a child, and I began discussing that child on your blog ... if I asked about your child's "orifices" ... if I called your child "hot" ... if I asked you to pass along a tongue-kiss from me to your child ... if I then suggested that you were "not human" and that if someone "Jon-Benet'd" you child I wouldn't be bothered at all ... and then, I repeated myself, again telling you that your child being murdered would definitely not be a bad thing ...

... and then over the course of the next week I returned to my blog and obsessively posted about you - about your child - about your spouse - about your family ....

If I did all that, your position would be that I had done nothing threatening?

Is that, in fact, your position?

I don't want to put in your words in your mouth. So please clarify. Because frankly - I don't beleive that is your position. I really don't.

And for the record, after Ms. Frisch's recent comments - Mr. Goldstein has contacted the authorities.

Now please clarify: is the above actually your position? If it's your child - there's no threat?

[Obviousman]

Nice place you have here.

It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.

So, bbbustard, you got kids? Really? What kind of kids? Are they cute? It would be a shame if something happened them, wouldn't it?

Nope, no threats here. Nothing to see, just move along.

Is it sinking in at all?

[mRed]

Wow! What Frisch said was vile AND her statements implied things. As a parent I would be alarmed.

Your response? Parse words, change the subject and accuse Republicans of things you wish to be true.

You keep Frisch, the world doesn't need her.

[Dave]

To be fair to bbbustard - unlike some others, he did condemn Frisch's words.

But I don't believe him when he argues that he sees "no threat." If he/she had a child (and perhaps he/she does), and they were on the receiving end of Frisch's comments ... I think he/she would see the threat. Crystal clear.

Restore my faith in political partisans, Bbbustard. Admit it. If it was your child, your family ... you'd see it as clear as day.

Or maybe we can find a middle ground? Perhaps you'd agree with this: after the tone and constant repetition of Frisch's comments, he would be very wise to at least ASSUME there might be a threat.

Can we agree that far?

[Evil Pundit]

The very first response to this post has Deb Frisch using Google to stalk a child she's previously threatened.

Does anyone see something wrong here?

[James]

"Poor Satchel. Imagine how he will feel in kindergarden when everyone in the class googles themselves."

You just now threatened the same child TWICE.

Bustard, I hope you like visits from the FBI and Eugene, Oregon sherrif's department to your site, both of whom I just contacted via phone.

I'm not blaming you, Bustard. But you did invite a sick psycho into your home, so now the cops are going to visit...

[Svolich]

BBBustard -

Deb says (on her site) she wasn't fired, wasn't asked to resign, and didn't lose her job over this.

She says she was planning on going back to Oregon anyway since her relationship had ended and she didn't like AZ (can't blame her for that).

It's possible that she pre-empted any possible action by her university by resigning. But SHE says she wasn't fired.

And her reply is very, very disturbing.

[CraigC]

We're waiting for your answer, "Bustard."

[John Thorpe]

You're an idiot.

If you walk away from reading the transcript feeling Frisch is a victim and Jeff the aggressor, then you are a moron.

It's creepy and yes, threatening, to talk about people giving the Jon Benet treatment to your child. And lord only knows who she was trying to inspire -- call it the Manson effect.

In any case, thanks for proving that people on the left are more than willing to set aside decency in favor of attacks on their political opposites.

Jackass.

[Jamie McArdle]

I think it's noteworthy that throughout the whole sordid mess - the first time around - Jeff Goldstein did not contact the authorities or anybody else; his commenters did. In reference to your "Goldstein’s behavior can only be characterized as despicable. He has allowed someone to be punished for an act that he knew did not happen," can you possibly be saying either that (a) Jeff would, or should, have been able to keep his commenters from emailing the U of A about what this woman, a psychology prof of all things, had been doing in the public sphere on her own time, or (b) that Jeff should have, himself, emailed or called the U of A to defend her?

For heaven's sake. Jeff Goldstein is not a Christian... and I think even a very committed Christian might be given pause at that love-thine-enemy expectation.

Also, as has been pointed out by the woman herself, Frisch resigned; she wasn't fired. So she didn't "lose her job" over her (ahem) at minimum grossly intemperate comments; she gave up her job rather than face the music she suspected might be coming. Look. If you're in a position of authority over young people, your expectation of privacy is going to take a hit, because society values the welfare of the young over your freedom to, for instance, access child porn or (as in this case) flirt with creating it. That she posted on her own time and not under the auspices of her employer may have meant that they wouldn't have had automatic grounds to fire her, but considering that parents still write a whole lot of checks to universities, it would have been a "freedom-loving" university indeed that could have viewed her comments, and the increasing evidence of her obsession, with equanimity.

I just hope she gets some help.

[CalFed]

That she posted on her own time and not under the auspices of her employer may have meant that they wouldn't have had automatic grounds to fire her,..

You sure about that? I thought that the comments came from two different
sites, one of them the UA

[bbbustard]

Thanks a lot for all the comments. Or most of them anyway. A spousal birthday had dragged me away from my computer this weekend, and if I spend much time at the computer, I'll be a dead bird. I'll be thinking about my response during the day, and I'll have it posted this evening.

[marcus]

Bustard,

Notice she said "google satchel goldstein". This is what comes up on Yahoo:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/famous/articles/0523unsolved-cheese23.html

"Then, on Nov. 5, 1978, Goldstein was beaten to death in a walk-in meat cooler at his shop. Police said someone struck him seven times with a blunt, cylindrical object, possibly a golf club. Goldstein's skull was crushed.

In a closed satchel on a shelf in a back room, police found $30,415 in cash - $100s, $50s, $20s and $10s bound with rubber bands - and a $30,000 cashier's check. The .357 Magnum was nowhere to be found."

The words "Goldstein" and "satchel" are both present. Could this be a roudabout threat?

If it were your child, would YOU take the chance?

Stop laying the blame on Jeff. You weren't there: I was, in real time. He said nothing to invite her putrid comments. It was her choice. Yeah, yeah, you've already said 10,000 times how vile her comments were. But the problem is that you continue to insist that Jeff deserves some culpability in all this.

He. Does. Not. Period.

[Bilgeman]

Bustard;

"I don’t understand what excitement and pleasure they get by trying to destroy Frisch’s career."

Then frankly,you're too stoopid to be allowed out and about without a keeper.

Frisch destroyed her own pathetic career by posting pedophilic and violent commentary about a 2 year-old child, and insulting commentary against the child's mother, neither of whom had anything whatsoever to do with whatever political windmill was being tilted at.

Which IS an accurate representation of what she did.

You are correct, in my view, by saying that she did not "threaten" them, but what she did do was also, as you yourself termed it, "repulsive, inexcusable, and abhorrent".

But then you immediately resort to making excuses for what you claimed was inexcusable...to wit:

"The Republicans today seem to believe that the ends justify the means. If they think a teacher should be fired, it's ok to lie about what the teacher did. If they want Bush to win in a Carolina primary, it's OK to lie about John McCain's having a black bastard child. This kind of lying is a bigger threat to a free democracy than Russia ever was."

What the fuck is wrong with you?

What the fuck do South Carolina Republicans have to do with the nasty commentary of this horrid woman?

Do you think that this broad's politics excuse her behavior?

I think you do,(just as long as she's not teaching YOUR kids or going after YOUR wife).

Frisch is getting exactly what she deserves.

Get your head out of your ass and pump the political bullshit out of your head, it's obviously putting too much pressure on your brain.

[word warrior]

You guyz r so stoopid! Google satchel goldstein means google jeff's son's name (DUH!) to see what an icky google trail his daddy left him.