What's In Your Water Cooler?

The “journalists” down in Miami are drinking something other than water. Writing for the Miami New Times, Tim Elfrink has this to say about Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon’s charges of sexual harassment leveled at Carol Rosenberg:

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon is a 41-year-old career military officer. He is the chief spokesman for the most controversial outpost on the planet, the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.

And, if you're to believe a letter he sent to the Miami Herald last week, veteran Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg so scandalized poor Jeffrey that he considers himself sexually harassed and can't go on with life unless Rosenberg is barred from reporting from Gitmo.What a load of shit.

Well, there’s some charming, insightful and unbiased opinion for you. Elfrink continues:

If you want to read Gordon's full letter to Herald editor Anders Gyllenhaal, it's postedhere. But trust us, Gordon's complaints basically add up to this: "Waahh, Carol made a mean joke about us torturing detainees. Sob, sob, Carol made a joke about how ugly I am. Booo-hooo, Carol isn't nice to the CNN reporters."Surely, the letter has nothing to do with the fact that Rosenberg has been a thorn in Gitmo's side for more than four years. She has broken more news from the tightly controlled base than anyone else, including her scoop two weeks ago about a prisoner protest. (You can read all of her Gitmo coverage here.)

I note that Elfrink doesn’t confront Gordon’s charges directly. Probably for the best since it could prove difficult to explain how Rosenberg’s questions concerning anal insertion, enjoying anal insertion and hanging out in South Beach could be misconstrued as professional or pertinent to either her job or Cmdr. Gordon’s.

Also writing in the Miami New Times, Kyle Munzenrieder concedes that Rosenberg made snarky remarks about Cmdr. Gordon’s sexuality but his only lament is that Rosenberg may have given ammunition to the “wingnut crowd.” Then Munzenrieder goes on to “theorize” about Gordon’s sexuality.

Newsbuster, which is always patently ridiculous (and in this case is flat-out wrong in saying there's a lawsuit involved) simply says, "apparently Carol Rosenberg really hates the U.S. military!" A number of other blogs have also jumped on this angle.

As one of the wingnuts linked in that paragraph, aside from being flattered to be grouped with Newsbusters, Instapundit and RightJuris, I'd like to point out that neither Elfrink nor Munzenrieder wrote anything that would dispel the accusations of media bias. In fact, just the opposite.

If either of them, or Rosenberg, has anything factual to say then by all means, have at it. Otherwise, is no reason to launch personal attacks against the men and women who serve in our military.

Carol Rosenberg: Media Bias On Crack

Via Memeorandum:

The next time someone tries to say that media bias doesn’t exist, you can crush their argument with two words, “Carol Rosenberg.” Rosenberg, a reporter with the Miami Herald, asked the following of Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon:

"Have you ever had a red hot poker shoved up your [butt]? Have you ever had a broomstick shoved up your [butt]? . . . How would you know how it feels if it never happened to you? Admit it, you liked it."

Gordon has filed a formal sexual harassment complaint against Rosenberg. Gordon alleges that Rosenberg "routinely labeled my colleagues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Justice Department, as well as her peers in the press, as 'bitches,' 'stupid,' 'lazy,' 'incompetent,' 'Nazis,' 'Saddam Hussein-like,' etc."

Gordon and Rosenberg crossed paths at Gitmo. No doubt Rosenberg has strong feelings concerning the Gitmo detentions, the war in Iraq and the military in general. The Liberal media hasn’t exactly been supportive of America’s war on terror. But Rosenberg’s job is to report facts, not harass and abuse a naval commander because her personal political prejudices. If Ms. Rosenberg is incapable of doing her job in a professional manner she should be re-assigned to cover a story less likely to enrage her liberal senses. I would suggest a few months on the traffic beat but that would put her in contact with another group that is often the target of liberal bias, the police.

Moe Lane comments:

It goes on. It’s the usual stuff from antiwar enthusiasts: attacks on sexual orientation, causal profanity, verbal attacks on appearance and habits, accusations of various fetishist behaviors, calling soldiers Nazis, nothing really out of the ordinary for that sort. On the off chance that the Miami Herald does something meaningful about this, she’s going to be a shoo-in for MSNBC’s nightly lineup.