This was inevitable among sick lefties who can't stand any reverence for icon in the political world right of center.

Free speech is not always decent speech. She is doing this more for titivating her rhetoric among like-minded sophomoric pseudo-intllectuals than for any real social cause.

Trying to get people fired when they say something you don't like, or if it hurts people's fee-fees is basically considered "activism" in US politics now.

If you cheer when it happens to people you don't like, you can't really whine when it happens to people you do like.

Jarrar is a treasure;
hopefully she can weather this storm.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/29598/sit…

When the investigation reveals she did in fact make the tweet, what's gonna happen?

If you want to talk shit about someone publicly then you should expect shit to be said about you in turn. Live by the Tweet Die by the Tweet.

@1
I think we need to protect speech like this as a matter of principle. It's very distressing for the future of our democracy that "protection of speech" seems to only extend to "protection of speech of people with whom I'm politically aligned with". This is certainly a problem on the left and places right here like SLOG (my appreciation for Katie Herzog being that she is a relatively lonely voice on the left calling this out). The basic issue, as I see it, is that most progressive liberals are professional-class white people from middle class upbringings. They have a very difficult time imagining that the tools of power will ever be used against them in a serious manner. They can't see that rules, laws and norms that protect people they disagree with ALSO protect them, because they don't expect to ever actually need protection (which is also why much of progressive ideology in this decade amounts of "empathetic" concern trolling - ie, white people arguing other white people shouldn't wear dreadlocks because a theoretical black person might be judged for wearing dreadlocks)

@1: I entirely agree that free speech isn't always decent speech and I would love it you could manage to apply that concept to those douche bag teens in Michigan as well.
Did she need to tweet that? Probably not. Was Babs Bush problematic? Absolutely.
I don't think she should be fired for saying something shitty about a public figure, but I don't think she gets a pass either for being snotty about a woman who in addition to being problematic also was much loved and did a lot of good in her lifetime too. That tweet was childish and advanced nothing.

@9: I'm not arguing against your viewpoint - I don't think anyone is. I'm talking about the tone, optics, and yes decency of the professor's rant. Did you actually read her tweets? They were abrasive and childish. They were simply made to get people angry, and in that sense I guess she met her objective.

@6 sums it up well.

@10 - I concur with that.

If I say Ted Kennedy was a pedophile people would rightly expect me to back that claim or shut up. (I make no such claim, obviously.)

But calling George Bush a war criminal? Totes fair!

Anyone you disagree with on any subject called a racist? Hell yeah!

Back it with the specific war crimes the former president was convicted of violating. Tell us how the late Barbara Bush was a racist with specifics. Or have the decency to hide your ignorance better, Ms Jarrar..

She shouldn't be sanctioned by her employer for her opinions. But her continued employment should be in question because she's not very bright.

@11

But do you have any opinion you would like to express about the racist and sexist replies and and threats she has gotten?

Though since you endorse @6 you presumably approve of those replies.

The former first lady made the following remark on national television shortly before the commencement of the invasion of Iraq:

‘Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?’

Yes, I fact checked on Sniped -- and vividly remember it said in real time.

Bush damned herself with her own words.

Jarrar also followed up online criticism by providing her phone number for anyone who wanted to shout at her to call . . . unfortunately, the number she posted was a mental health hotline at an entirely different university. Perhaps she thought that was clever, but it turns out that flooding a lightly staffed mental health hotline that usually receives a small number of calls a week with 50-70 an hour is a bit of a dick move. Who could have predicted?

Is it true that Babs Bush had a thing for getting it on with a Doberman?

That could just be an Internet rumor. But you never know, the Catherine the Great thing did turn out to be true. I just thought I'd check in with you guys to see if anyone knew anything about it.

@17

Since you sort of had some actual content-

This should he easy. George HW Bush is a war criminal, right? So tell me of which crimes he was convicted in a US or international court.

@15: Depend on whether the reply was civil or not. You can't conflate expectation with approval given an array of possibilities.

@21

Or let's refrain from calling people criminals who aren't convicted of crimes since we'd demand the same in their place? Phrase "innocent until proven guilty" ring any bells?

And let's not conflate proven crimes like the Holocaust with wild unfounded accusations while we're at it?

Personally I dislike bitch as a way to refer to a woman ever, and certainly not just for political disagreements. But I'm not a staunch feminist like you clearly are.

@16: Yes, and she said some other stupid and wrong things from over scores of years in the public glare. She was flawed. Humans typically are. But maybe you can take heart about what she said about Trump. Newsweek:

"More recently, Bush did not hold back in her views on the current president. She told CNN in February of 2016 that she was “sick of him,” referring to then-candidate Donald Trump, who ended her hopes of having a second son in the White House.

"He doesn't give many answers to how he would solve problems. He sort of makes faces and says insulting things," she said about Trump when defending her son Jeb during a bruising Republican primary slog. "He's said terrible things about women, terrible things about the military. I don't understand why people are for him, for that reason."

How many innocent civilians does a President have to kill with drone strikes to be considered a war criminal?
We may have to build more cells.

@25 Obama would need to take up one of those cells you're building

@4 Oh, yay, Ryan Saavedra?

Sure, I'll get right to reading what I'm sure will be an illuminating not-ex-Breitbartian hot garbage take.

@11:

"They were abrasive and childish. They were simply made to get people angry,"

Welcome to the Internet, and welcome to SLOG.

@23:

"'Innocent until proven guilty' ring any bells?"

I dunno, why don't you ask the families of all the Black men (and women) summarily executed by police without being granted their constitutional right to a trial by a jury of their peers. Maybe it will ring some bells with them...

@24:

Just because she said a few things we might agree with, it doesn't negate all the other orders-of-magnitude more horrible things she also said. Being only 50% or 60% racist doesn't grant one the right to take the moral high-ground.

Raindrop et al, please also get worked up over sick righties who can't stand any reverence for icon in the political world also right of center.

“Barbara Bush was a nasty drunk. When it came to drinking she made Betty Ford look like Carrie Nation #blottoBabs,” [Roger] Stone wrote, hours after the former first lady's death. “Barbara Bush drank so much booze, if they cremated her … her body would burn for three days.”

And:

"She said far worse things about me,” Stone told TheWrap. “Barbara Bush was a vindictive, entitled, mean-spirited woman. May she rest in peace.”'

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/roger-s…

@28: Really? People can't strive to do better than the were before (e.g. taking the moral high ground)?

@28

Get right on that. How about a list of those for whom the police shooting wasn't ruled justified afterwards? What!? It eliminates the vast majority of police shootings of any kind!?

How odd!

The cops screw up and because those screw ups come at a high price we should hold them at higher accountability. There is isolated racism in policing and where it exists it needs cured, if necessary by termination of employment or jail time.

But most cops are decent fair minded professional men and women doing their level beat in a tough job. Made tougher by those who choose to lie about and defame them.

Who cares, let's just thank god for death.

I hope the rest of the Bush family dies a painful death.

So let me get this straight, the GOP and Dump Truck can say anything they want about anyone, as vile, revolting, reprehensible, offensive, and untrue as possible and we all have to eat that shit, but someone tweets some truth after Barbara Bush dies and people are calling for this individual to die because she's fat and ugly and she should definitely lose her job. FFS. If anyone needs to be fired it's Donald Fucking Trump and Barbara Bush was a racist who raised a war criminal. Opinions are opinions, facts are facts, are alternative facts are flat out lies. Revering the Bush family now because of the current Dumpster Fire in the White House being the worst thing this country had seen since 1980 does not change FACTS.

Just because assholes die doesn't mean we have to pretend they weren't assholes.

@34

Nope. Politifact debunked this back in 2014. Basically someone like you said it, others put it in Facebook and the lie spread.

Dick Cheney and George W Bush were investigated by the EU for potential crimes relaying to torture in Afghanistan in 2007, never for Iraq. At no time were arrest warrants issued or a trial conducted, and the investigation went nowhere. Look it up.

@29: So what? Here's to St. Barbara!

And to the person who keeps insisting George W. Bush wasn't a war criminal because he wasn't convicted, he actually was:

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/201…
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/po…

And even if he hadn't been, what about all of the Nazis who were never convicted (until just recently, after living their entire lives, they've started being indicted and imprisoned and are using their ages and ailing health as "get out of jail free cards" when they are convicted).

They are war criminals. So is Georgie Porgie and his mother was a nasty, racist, piece of shit.

Someone else already posted her comments about not wanting to taint her beautiful mind with all the dead people resulting from the war in Iraq. And here's another gem: Barbara Bush's comments regarding refugees in Texas who fled NOLA after Hurricane Katrina:
"What I'm hearing, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

Just because the Bush Family is now only the second most revolting and criminal family in American Presidential history, let's be clear, they are still racist, war mongering, hateful pieces of shit, dead or alive.

@31:

"Isolated racism", riiiiggggghhhhhttttt...

Granted, most LEO's manage to go through their entire careers and never shoot a black person for any reason whatsoever - doesn't mean we should let those who do for no better reason than "I was askeered of teh skeery black person" off the hook nearly as often as we do, because, if cops can NOT shoot white people who are brandishing actual guns, they surely can learn not to shoot black people carrying cellphones or cigarettes or all sorts of other clearly not gun-like things, yes?

While I don't live anywhere near New Orleans or the Gulf of Mexico, I remember Hurricane Katrina back on August 29, 2005. The city of New Orleans was all but wiped out. The Governor of Louisiana declared a national state of emergency, only to be laughed at by the GOP. Those who most desperately needed any help from FEMA were left high and dry. Many people lost their lives and / or everything.
I remember Laura Bush among other members of the Bush / Cheney Administration brushing off one of our country's most devastating tropical storms as "Karina".
Barbara Bush's comment was among the worst: "Oh, well, they were poor, anyway."
"Silver Fox", my ass. Babs qualifies as an old, racist Gray Bitch.
@33 Agreed, and may I add the following to your list: Cheneys, Kochs, Trumps, Pences, Ryans, and McConnells.

I remember Barbara Bush laundering money during Katrina. She purchased education supplies to donate. But she bought from her son's company. So she got a tax write-off and kept the money in the family.

A campus free-speech controversy and no helpful person has pointed out that free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences? Is no-one going to post that wonderful xkcd stick-figure cartoon about "they're just showing you the door?" No? Nobody?

@1 you poor little snowflake! ...we all feel for you & understand that no allegedly 'revered' right winger should ever be criticized. Not at her timely death, oh no!

@45 close, but no cigar: she's eligible for social consequences, the Twitter mob, etc. What she should be protected from is an "investigation" by the state (through the University). She can't slander a dead person, so it's unclear what the University is investigating.

About a year or two ago a couple of freshmen from the University of Oklahoma appeared on Youtube leading a racist song. Their action were racist, stupid, and deplorable; they were expelled from the university that. While I don't mean to defend their actions I see no difference between what they did and what this associate professor did.

She will be fired for a "terrorist" act of purposely giving out a false number with the intent of people clogging up a much needed suicide help line which directly impedes much needed life support for people in gave need when they call, hence 'terrorist" act.

48
Lyrics that were as offensive as the average rap song....

Agreed @50, but they were white juvenile boys.

Required reading for all those whom hang their hat on a few bone-headed statements a Former First Lady made that they sanationously use to wipe out all the good works and woman she really was. Take it away, Maureen Dowd.