She Said, He Said

“Joy Reid is a ‘homophobe’ and a ‘liar’ while MSNBC is ‘allowing her to try to weasel her way out of this situation using ridiculous lies,” ~Michael Lucas.

Joy Reid is familiar to many who watch MSNBC. She is a frequent guest on their evening programming in addition to hosting her own show on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Twelve years ago, Joy Reid was a contributor to the Miami Herald in addition to her blog, The Joy Reid Report.

Then last December, posts penned by Reid from 2005-2007 resurfaced that were shocking to her present liberal audience that her attitudes on gay people and gay marriage were more than just cringeworthy, they were ignorant and mean.

Her targets included Oprah, Gayle, Rachel Maddow, Karl Rove, Senator John McCain, boxer Laila Ali, artist Queen Latifah, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, comedian Eddie Murphy, and especially Congressman Charlie Crist. A very detailed look at her posts from that time can be found here.

Initially, Reid said those posts were, “somehow put in by an “external party” that “manipulated material from my now-defunct blog.”

Soon after, that was followed by a mea culpa taking responsibility and saying in part, “This note is my apology to all who are disappointed by the content of blogs I wrote a decade ago, for which my choice of words and tone have legitimately been criticized.”

Cut to last week when an additional cachepot of posts and tweets by Reid during that same period surfaced, as homophobic and virulent as the others. Immediately, PFLAG rescinded the award they were about on bestow on Reid.

This is how Reid addressed the controversy this past Saturday.

Then someone from our community weighed in, and that someone was Michael Lucas. And where did he weigh in? Breitbart News.

Yes. Breitbart News and Michael Lucas are indeed strange bedfellows except when their ideology lines up. As you may recall, Lucas wrote a piece for Breitbart after the Pulse shootings where he called out Muslim immigrants as a threat to the LGBT community.

This time, the tie that binds was the opportunity to take down a figure very popular with liberals and the left.

Whether Michael Lucas is the person we’d like to be our mouthpiece to the right and alt-right of the Breitbart readership is very debatable – and not one for today. Likewise, Lucas has allegedly mistreated models amid a series of other misconduct. That too, we’re going to let hang in the air for the purpose of this post.

“Why is MSNBC so reluctant to get rid of Reid? Just last month, liberal groups called for a boycott of Laura Ingraham’s talk show just because she sent a tweet jokingly mocking Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg for being rejected by four colleges which resulted in her losing half of her advertisers. So far no advertisers left Joy Reid.

Reid is a homophobe and a liar, but she is also a powerful liberal black woman who has one of the biggest Twitter followings amongst TV hosts. I think the liberal hypocrisy is clear.” ~Michael Lucas

An NBC spokesperson told Politico that Reid would remain on the air despite the controversy, but network representatives declined to say whether NBC will initiate its own internal investigation of the blog posts.

Of course, there is merit to the argument that having been given a pass by some in the gay blogosphere on his alleged past transgressions, it’s hypocritical for him to condemn Reid for getting the same from the liberal press for hers.

Then again, another one of Lucas’ statement in the Breitbart article is not without merit of its own,

“Lucas further accused progressive groups of evidencing ‘hypocrisy’ by remaining largely silent about Reid’s alleged and admitted anti-gay comments. Many of those same groups advocated for a boycott of Fox News host Laura Ingraham over one controversial remark on Twitter about Parkland shooting survivor and anti-gun advocate David Hogg that Ingraham later apologized for, Lucas noted.”

As for Reid, I don’t believe she was hacked. Neither does the New York Times, The Intercept, or The Internet WayBack Machine to name a few.

Personally, I do believe people evolve. President Obama had his own journey around the same time. I wish Reid had never tried the “I was hacked” bit and gotten the truth immediately.

As for Michael Lucas, while he’s not the first one to come to mind when it comes to political punditry and yes, he and Breitbart may indeed have an occasional marriage of convenience to them — and inconvenience to the most of the rest of us, he does have a point: the very same folks who helped the recent anti-Ingraham campaign become the success that it was have largely been silent on the issue.

Evolved or not, did Joy Reid get a pass because she’s generally considered “one of us liberals?”

Will we be just as forgiving if there is a next time — or have we all become so polarized we’re unwittingly part of the problem too?

There’s only one answer I am sure of, we can have the final word come November.

Watch this blog.

 
 
And now, back to our regularly scheduled pornography.