'Time' Reporter: Biden Blooper No Prob, GOP Senator's Internet Description Is

Scarborough Country/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

by Mark Finkelstein

July 7, 2006

If you're a Republican senator who makes a remark with insensitive racial connotations, you're toast. Ask Trent Lott. But if you're a Democrat? Hey, no problem! Then again, woe betide the Republican senator who offers an awkward description of the workings of the internet.

That's the world according to Time reporter Ana Marie Cox, who appeared on last evening's Scarborough Country. For those who might have missed the Biden flap, on a recent campaign swing to New Hampshire, Biden told an Indian political activist: “You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Sounds like a career-stopper for a Republican. But Cox saw no real problem. She opined that while other things might derail Biden's march to the White House, this wouldn't be it. But when it came to Republican Senator Ted Stevens, Cox wasn't so forgiving. In explaining his vote on a so-called 'net neutrality' amendment, Stevens recently said:

"The internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

Not prose for the ages, granted. But I don't think anyone believes Stevens was suggesting the internet is actually composed of tubes. Seems that he had the concept of a pipeline in mind, a first-in-first-out protocol. In any case, certainly nothing offensive, other perhaps than to some San Francisco techno geeks.

Nevertheless, Cox was of the opinion that Stevens' remark was more likely to prove damaging than Biden's to their respective careers..

You don't suppose the two senators' party affiliations might have figured into Ana Marie's calculus, do you?

[JLAGRAYFOX]

Joe Biden is going nowhere!!! Why even talk about this low life Democrat vermin and scum of a human being!!!

[GOPJ]

You don't suppose the two senators' party affiliations might have figured into Ana Marie's calculus, do you?

Ummmmm, like "yeah, that's the only thing" that figured into Ana's calculus...

[AntiGovernment]

Aww come on. Do you seriously think what Senator Biden said was racist? Or are you just being overtly PC?

Big problem: racism against whites is called 'PC'. It might be funny, but it is racism nonetheless. Do you know how many anti-minority jokes come to my mind when I am in their company? I've lost count. However, I hold my tongue, even if a joke is very, very funny. So that's bad. But a preferential treatment of non-whites is perfectly okay, according to the feds and universities. And blacks make jokes about whites all the time, but that doesn't seem to be a problem.

Everyone on the planet is a racist to a certain extent.

Well yeah, but some are more racist than others.

[Red Badger]

I had a pizza.......

[Political Junkie Too]

"The internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

Is this the definition of a tube to nowhere?

-PJ

[Dracian]

IT IS NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES A FIRST IN FIRST OUT PROTOCOL.

One particular protocol, TCP, has numbered packets which can be re-ordered, but real-time streaming data, such as carried by the UDP protocol depends on a FIFO underlying pipeline. In streaming media, packets that arrive out of order are discarded and a hole appears in the data -- a glitch in the sound or video image.

Therefore in reality, FIFO *IS* the underlying internet as much as possible. Out of order arrival of packets is a rarity. Multiple routes from source to destination is a rarity. While these sorts of things are conceivable and tolerable with protocols like TCP, they nevertheless seldom occur anywhere on the internet.

[elhombrelibre]

Of course, this is the angle the MSM approaches all news with. Take as a great example Kellog, Brown, and Root; they're owned by Halliburton. I saw them in the Balkans in the Clinton years. The MSM hardly had a peep about them then. Truth be known they do a pretty unusual logistics mission that few in the private sector can do and they won a long binding contract during Clinton's presidency. How many times have we heard the media link them to Bush since the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq without any mention that Bush couldn't get rid of them if he wanted to?

[LS]

Just saw Harold in an episode of "House."

[mewzilla]

VIDEO:BIDEN: 'You cannot enter a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have an India Accent

[angelsonmyside]

Sounds like Hillary, lol

"Hillary Clinton 'truly regrets' Gandhi joke
Remarks called stereotypical, racially insensitive
Wednesday, January 7, 2004 Posted: 1642 GMT (12:42 AM HKT)

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized for joking that Mahatma Gandhi used to run a gas station in St. Louis, saying it was "a lame attempt at humor."

The New York Democrat made the remark at a fund-raiser Saturday. During an event here for Senate candidate Nancy Farmer, Clinton introduced a quote from Gandhi by saying, "He ran a gas station down in St. Louis."

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/06/elec04.s.mo.farmer.clinton.ap/

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Here's the verbatim quote from Wonkette Cox letting Biden off the hook but predicting bad things for Stevens:

"I have to say that this particular gaffe [by Biden], I‘m not sure if it will actually haunt him in the same way, let‘s say, that Ted Stevens‘ explanation of the Internet as being a series of tubes earlier this week will haunt him."

[CyberAnt]

Well .. it's not just "white males". Anybody who is conservative or a republican is dumber than dirt .. to them.

[benjamin032]

That's a new one, what's the DBM?

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post/ping. I heard it on Michael Savage on the ride from the 1st job to the part-time job this evening.

Outrageous. Biden should go back to plagiarized mouth-speak. It serves him better than his own irrational thoughts.

[MountainMenace]

A wandering thought run amok. After reading my response it didn't seem to make sense. DBM "Drive By Media".

[benjamin032]

Now that makes much more sense. If you only glance at it you might not get the whole point.

[SubMareener]

I think Senator Ted Stevens had be briefed on the planned attack on the New York "Tubes" that was discovered by monitoring the Internet. That is probably what associated "tubes" and the Internet in his mind.