Ah, the great Tina Brown, finding she is passe in the “old media”, has decided to imitate the social climbing Huffington in the “new Media” by getting her own group blog.

It will probably be a hit.

But I have a long standing dislike of Tina Brown, because she is a bigot.

Years ago, she moved to Washington from New York City, and wrote a column lamenting that unlike her elite New York City neighborhood, she would now be surrounded by “Christians”. Oh the horror!

She then went on to parrot every calumny against Christians that she could think of: most of which were inaccurate cliches to the point of prejudice, and little of which had little to do with actual Christians (as a doctor, unlike reporters, we have to understand our patient’s culture. I have worked with many Christian cultures in the US, including with Bible belt Christians in Oklahoma, Hispanic Christians in New Mexico, various ethnic Christians in inner cities in the US, and Native American Christians in the MidWest. None of these Christians fit Ms. Brown’s caricatures).

But the real problem: How could Ms. Brown say that there were no Christians in New York City? Because they were like Chesterton’s “invisible man”.

British writer G.K Chesterton once wrote a book about “The Invisible Man”. No one “saw” the murderer, but only the priest-detective Father Brown realized that the upper crust never “saw” those who waited on tables, scrubbed their floors, or delivered the mail. The priest did see these non entities as people, and solved the case (the murderer dressed as a postman and was able to enter the house).

There are plenty of these “invisible men” (and women) in New York City, but she never “saw” them. It was easier to ignore them and ridicule a “straw man”. They rarely get noticed otherwise in headlines. But you know, most of the 300 plus firefighters and policemen who died in the World Trade Center were such Christians Mayor Giuliani is Catholic, and Father Mychal who died there with them, and Father George who gave a lot of them absolution on the way into the towers were not exactly progressive atheists.  Yet Ms. Brown didn’t seem to follow the dots and notice that those who risked their lives protecting her and her friends might be the same Christians she ridiculed.

But of course, Tina Brown is not only anti “christian”, she is also openly anti Catholic, bless her upper class British heart.

In the UK, before the Muslims became the “minority of record”, the ridicule of the elite was directed against Catholics (e.g. Monty Python). Why Catholics? Because most Catholics were poor and Irish, and a Britain who allowed massive starvation and political oppression in that country for years subconsciously justified their actions because the Irish were untermensch, unable to run their own island. Millions fled to the UK because of famine, and a hundred years later, the disdain against Irish Catholics (and Jews) continues to linger in the upper classes.

So, the next time you read another newspaper column claiming that people who don’t vote for Obama are “racist”, just start noticing that the real “racism” is class bigotry, often reframed as religious bigotry, and the main perpetrators are his supporters.

The “invisible man” in this election is ordinary people of all races who work for a living, pay their taxes, save money, go to church, give time and money to local charities, and play by the rules.

They are the ones that when told to vote for “Hope” think “Used car salesman…let me kick those tires first”.

They are the ones who bought modest homes they could afford instead of larger ones in more affluent neighborhoods. And they are the ones who will be shafted by the bills for the “bailout”, not the small greedy people living beyond their means, not the politicians who “helped the poor” by pressuring companies to grant loans to bad credit risks, not the congressmen who got money for their campaigns by “employees” of “Freddie Mac/FannyMae”  and of course not the big and greedy capitalists who stood by and let the house of cards grow higher and higer because they earned a profit on the transactions no matter what happens.

Although the MSM is big at criticizing the McCain ads for being “negative”, they ignore the nasty undercurrent of the campaign is actually anti populist class bigotry:

The ordinary folks who follow the rules are “clinging to religion”,

“Christianists” are misquoted and misrepresented by quoting the most bigoted person the visiting reporter can find.

Even the the attempt of Catholic bishops to remind Catholics that abortion is still murder is “balanced” by a NYTimes who quotes a bunch of self selected “progressive” Catholic groups. No one ever heard of these groups, of course: not even ordinary Catholics like myself (who was, after all, a “peace and justice” Catholic working in a poor clinic that served minorities). Nor are we told the source of their funding…

It’s open season on the hoi polloi, and there is a lot of garbage being thrown out there, and a lot of selective reporting.

So will Tina Brown’s new blog mirror her biases?One suspects they will.
Today’s blog includes an essay by  Christopher Buckley who says he will vote for Obama because he has a “first class temperament” and great intellect, whereas John McCain does not…and McCain actually had the nerve to publish negative ads.

But the real clue to what will be the bias on Brown’s blog is this line:

It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

The photo is of a middle aged man.

Well, sorry, Mr. Buckley, but if a middle aged man like you still gets an allowance from one’s dead parents instead of working for a living, pray tell me why I should bother to listen to your opinion?

Or, as my Aunt Vera would say: Who died and made you the king?

And tell Ms Brown if bigots like her support Obama, it give me another reason (the first one was the bias against Hillary) to join other “Hillary democrats” to vote for his opponents: not because I am a racist, but because I’ve lived in countries where elites play the Messiah card to get votes  and stay in power. I prefer the US, where we take care of our own, not rely on the elites to care for us.

And finally, Ms. Brown, I will say a short prayer to Father Mike that your heart will be softened and you will reject your class and religious bigotry. For, unlike you,  with Father Mike, no one was the enemy. He saw everyone as a child to be loved: gay transvestites, macho firemen, plane crash families and ordinary folks all loved him, because all they could see in his eyes was that he mirrored God’s love.

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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She writes about human rights at MakaipaBlog.

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