What was Chris Cuomo thinking?
Another Tweeter with an itchy Twitter trigger finger* learns that pausing to think before tweeting might be wiser:
Chris Cuomo is co-host of CNN’s morning show. He’s also a former law and justice correspondent for ABC News. He has a law degree from Fordham University and is a licensed attorney. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is his brother.
In other words, this is somebody you’d expect would know what he’s talking about on the subject of basic constitutional facts. And yet [he tweeted]: “hate speech is excluded from protection. dont just say you love the constitution…read it.”
Robby Soave’s piece at Reason then proceeds to cite the relevant words in the Constitution (First Amendment), as well as case law in which “the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the First Amendment to protect all kinds of odious speech, including speech perceived to be hateful.” There are a few exceptions—such as the “fighting words” exception—but they don’t apply to the situation in question, which is the Pamela Geller case.
How on earth did Cuomo make a goof of that magnitude? You might say that Cuomo must have known it wasn’t true but thought that no one would catch him. And yet that doesn’t make sense because Twitter is the sort of place where everyone on the other side is waiting to pounce on you and show off their own bon mots if your bon mot is flawed. So how is it that I, a mere blogger who went to law school 9,000 years ago, am aware that the Constitution generally protects even hate speech, and Cuomo seems unaware of it? This is not an esoteric legal principle, either; it’s a basic one.
[* NOTE: Like the way that sounds? I do.]
Because, you, unlike Mr. Cuomo, are not twisting the Constitution into a pretzel to “prove” your point.
“What was Chris Cuomo thinking?”
As a Democrat, the same thing the Islamists are: “There’s too much of this political freedom thing going on”
Hate speech is just speech the other side doesn’t like and wants to ban.
For many on the left the truth is whatever they want it to be.
The 1st Amendment is a primary target for destruction by the Left. And the 2nd Amendment is about the only thing standing in their way of getting rid of the 1st. Funny how the Framers had that all worked out 😉
What was Chris Cuomo thinking?
Nothing. This was pure wish fulfillment.
Given the contorted ‘logic’ of leftists when it comes to the 2nd, it shouldn’t be a surprise that cuomo would twist the 1st into a pretzel.
What IS “hate speech?”
Speech by people that leftists hate.
Such speech must not be free.
Couldn’t Chris Cuomo’s tweet be interpreted as “hate speech” by someone who both loves and has read AND understood the Constitution? He’s misinterpreting a basic core value of western society.
Cuomo has since tweeted:
You think I really meant it was one of the six textual precepts of 1A? Don’t be so desperate to find criticism.
and
For last time (today), I didn’t mean the language of 1A, I meant the case law. And hate speech has been protected except for fighting words.
See, it’s that all the rest of us are just too dumb/desperate to understand what he says. What an obnoxious jerk he is.
If you make it Twitchy Twitter trigger finger you’ll have a Twitter Tongue Twister.
Now he’s frantically trying to backpedal, with tweets saying that he was referring to caselaw, not the text of the Constitution itself, that the caselaw he meant was the Chaplinsky fighting-words case, and that he didn’t mean that ALL hate speech was unprotected, just fighting words.
Apparently, in addition to failing to understand the Constitution, he fails to understand the Internet well enough to realize that people can read his tweet and see what he actually wrote. Also, he fails to understand the first rule of holes.
Cuomo understands full well. He and his mean us harm. Any twist or dodge or lie will do. They keep their eyes on the prize.
If this by Peter Wehner over at Commentary doesn’t make Cuomo wince, nothing will:
You went to law school, Neo? I had no idea.
As for the now-hapless Chris Cuomo, I’d like to think that this will forever disqualify him for higher office. But given past history, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Cuomo wanted it to be true. That alone justified throwing reason (and case law) to the wind.
I see this much like a Freudian slip or nervous tic: by itself, it means little. But if it’s a pattern, it tells you something about the subconscious of the speaker.
“For last time (today), I didn’t mean the language of 1A, I meant the case law. And hate speech has been protected except for fighting words.”
But he said and meant the language of 1A, not case law. He tweeted to not just love the Constitution but to read it as well. Was speaking (in his empty head) to the neanderthal constitution-clutchers.
And he said that hate speech was NOT protected.
He said these things expressly and now he wants to claim or imply that he did not.
When Cuomo can say whatever he wants without fear of correction and be believed by most of the no/low information voters, anything he says is the “truth”.
Too many CNN listeners will not check for facts, and “if someone on TV said it, or the ____ News printed it, it must be true.
Progressives have this delusion that Bill Clinton was so smooth and so smart that he could just charm everyone into doing it his way just by talking. (“I’m not here. I don’t know what you’re looking at, but it’s NOT ME.”) Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case and that people let the Clinton nonsense go because it simply did not affect them. They didn’t believe a word but also didn’t think it worth the fuss. Unfortunately, progressives ever since have gotten it in their heads that they can just talk and talk and the sheeple will let them get away with it.
It’s more of the math I don’t understand:
You prove to a hundred people that you’re an inveterate liar–the point you make is such an obvious lie.
You hope there is at least a chance of convincing one person of your view.
How’s that supposed to work out? I don’t get the business model.
Except, I suppose, if you presume the hundred already know you’re a liar. Then it doesn’t make a difference.
I guess, our bettor Chris Cuomo got the US mixed up with the UK, wishful thinking
Thinking isn’t something within Cuomo’s or any other leftists’ repertoire I’m afraid. Everything with them is agenda driven wishful thinking.
“What?”
“Was Chris Cuomo thinking?”
Sorta.
My view of the Cuomo family: they’re down-market Kennedys who, of course, are down-market Rockefellers.
Thanks to Ann for bringing forward Peter Wehner’s commentary. Priceless.
His description could apply to many in the media/political environment. Ignorance and arrogance seem to almost go hand-in-hand these days.
Fordham law degree hereby revoked.
“How on earth did Cuomo make a goof of that magnitude? ”
Well, a few months ago, while Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. he revealed that he doesn’t get a fundamental premise of the Declaration of Independence:
“Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man… That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”
I suppose he thinks we can compromise on free speech by agreeing to not engage in hate speech & “fighting words” (which he also got confused).
In his own way Cuomo is worse than Brian Williams.
Cuomo as Humpty Dumpty:
So in ChrisCuomoSpeak, “Constitution” means “case law,” and “hate speech” means “fighting words.”
Of course, how silly of me that I didn’t understand that in the first place!
In other words, this is somebody you’d expect would know what he’s talking about on the subject of basic constitutional facts.
This is somebody I would expect would know nothing about what’s he’s talking about because all he does is obey Authority and Hussein’s pen.
When William Howard Taft was Supreme Court Chief Justice, he said ” We must afford the greatest protection to the speech we find most offensive. For id that is banned, how long until the rest of speech follows? ”
Badgers are strict Taftians on the 1rst Amendment.
Cuomo does not think – he is just another talking head on TV.
At the gym in the morning I’ll be surfing through the channels to avoid commercials and often land on his yapping mouth only to hear him make what might be called “verbal faux pas” all the time.
Neo, you’re right in that he should know better; but, for some reason doesn’t. Perhaps, you are giving him too much credit for being smart when, in fact, he really isn’t.
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’
The unions. Lawyers may think they lack a union, but eventually even they will figure out what is really going on.
Hey, I know the Constitution generally protects hate speech and even to an extent “fighting words” and I can’t even prove for certain that I’ve driven past a law school.
I do like the sound of your post and, in fact, I like the sound of most of your posts.
I can’t imagine what Cuomo did in law school to be so wrong on such a simple thing. In fact, it is hardly necessary to go to law school to understand that offensive speech is protected, just as one doesn’t need a JD from Harvard Law to know that ‘corps’ is pronounced ‘core’ and not ‘corpse’–but that’s another story.
It is possible that Cuomo and Obama learned little more than ‘critical legal theory’ and have only a limited grasp of basic law and essentially none of the Constitution. It is also possible that neither Obama nor Cuomo is very smart.
“hate speech is excluded from protection. dont just say you love the constitution…read it.”
A zombie telling me or anyone else to read the Constitution… that is one big fing joke, isn’t it. But who is the joke on, hrm?
This Cuomo theme is simply a rehash of our old fool-versus-knave debate on Baraq Hussein. We concluded, I believe, he was more knave than fool. I think the same of the Cuomos, both of them.
The Left thinks the Right is stupid, which is an advantage for the anti-Left. We must not make the same mistake. Let us not underestimate the enemy. I much prefer to think of them as sly, devious liars and manipulators than as Stupids.
“How on earth did Cuomo make a goof of that magnitude?”
IMO it’s a case of rathering (as in Dan Rather); i.e., speaking from a preconceived narrative. I offer that Rather knew that the Bush correspondence was false because at the time of the supposed correspondence he was already involved in his reporting career and using typewriters. At that time there was only one typewriter that I know of that could type a superscript “th” (that was the IBM “Executive” model which had a one-strike plastic ribbon, not a conventional ribbon made of inked cloth as the Bush correspondence purports to have). I offer that Dan Rather intrinsically knew this correspondence was not possible as it appeared, but he so much wanted it to be true that he perhaps never gave the impossibility a second thought.
Likewise, Cuomo so wants hate speech (i.e., speech he disagrees with) to be beyond First Amendment protection that all of his legal training is overlooked in favor of his preferred narrative.
Cuomo’s joining at-the-hip to the progressive narrative tells us much more about how his personal point of view effects his thought and, therefore, his reportage than anything it might suggest about any flaws in his legal training.
The name of the day was Chaplinsky as in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the origin of the fighting words exclusion.
Chris Cuomo is like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz.
He clicks together his *ruby red slippers * & chants
“There is no protection for hate speech in the US
Constitution, there is no protection for hate speech
in the US Constitution”.
And the magic spell makes it so !
Question for Lefties, How do your minds work ????
I find it ironic that Piss Chirst, by Serrano, mentioned (if at all) in this draw Ol’ Mo story and how evil Geller is for instigating muslims to violence with her cartoon contest, not one of them mentioned who paid for Piss Christ. Piss Christ was financed by an art grant (National Endowment for the Arts?) from the US Government!
So it is acceptable for the government to pay for art that insults a large percentage of the citizenry, but it’s not okay for a private citizen to hold a private meeting where Ol’ Mo cartoons drawn by artists on their own dime are entered into a contest? Just gotta love the hypocrisy.
“How on earth did Cuomo make a goof of that magnitude? ”
Come on, give him a break, his intentions were good./sarc/
After all, going to school all those years and being spoon fed that it is how you feel is what is important, not the facts or the outcome.
He is just following in the footsteps of “dear leader”. And has about the same constitutional law knowledge and wisdom as “dear leader” 🙁 🙁
Cuomo didn’t goof. He lied. He got busted and he’s trying to cover it with fluff–or something. But the point is, somebody out there bought it. And that’s the point.
I wonder… since the natinoal endowment of the arts funded piss christ, would they fund piss mohamed to be equal?
oh, should i point out that if you blame the victim, then its womens fault they get raped… no? break out the burkas…
right now, rapists are converting as they will have a perfectly acceptable excuse to rape. its the victims fault.
though i wonder how it can be offensive to quote the koran and hadith directly without embellishment?
and on another note, how many christians are thinking, we have to return to militancy to get respect from the dems… onward christian soldiers…
What was Chris Cuomo thinking?
nothing
thats the beauty of being on the left
its like a DMV job
do what your told and your in like flynn…
so he dont have to think to be successful
just parrot the party line….
then we can have lots of incompetent women take over the jobs of men, and us men can go into the basements to play nintendo, watch the games and let women pay the high taxes from their affirmative action jobs and support the men they pushed out of society..
power to the pudenda!!!
For Chris Cuomo to be thinking…He’d have to be THINKING. Ain’t gonna happen.
_____________________________________
“They’d have to be exposed to the unaccustomed Torture of Thought.” …George Will…
By accusing the United States of supporting violent opposition forces in Russia, Putin is subtly but unmistakably claiming the right to support violent opposition forces in the United States. -Nyquist
Chris Cuomo is part of the Dynasty of Cuomo…
They have been socialist dems (menshiviks) since before it was fashionable to be such… see Andrew Cuomo, and Mario Cuomo
Judge Moore said, “I believe that’s a matter of law because our rights contained in the Bill of Rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God.”
Cuomo replied, “Our laws do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man.”
Judge Moore said, “Let me ask you one question. Let me ask you one question, Chris. Is the Declaration of Independence law?”
Cuomo said, “You would call it organic law as a basis for future laws off of it?”
Judge Moore said, “I would call it the organic law because the United States code calls it organic law. It is organic law because the law of this country calls it the organic law of the country means where our rights come from. And if they come from there, men can’t take it away.”
Cuomo said again, “Our rights do not come from God. That’s your faith. That’s my faith, but not our country. Our laws come from the collective agreement and compromise.”
Judge Moore said, “It’s not a matter of faith, sir. It’s a matter of organic law, which states, ‘We hold these truths to be held equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ And the only role of government is stated in the next sentence is to secure those rights for us. The government starts taking those rights away from us, then it’s not securing and it is defiling the whole purpose of government.”
Richard Aubrey:
But whether Cuomo lied or not (knave or fool, in other words), the lie itself would have been a goof, because it’s so obviously and stupidly wrong and holds him up to ridicule. It’s beyond the Big Lie, it’s the Obviously Stupid Lie that won’t convince hardly anyone who isn’t already on his side, and even a few of them are probably embarrassed by it (although not having waded through their reactions, I could be overestimating them, too).
Neo.
y3ah, he’s on the edge of a goof. But his allies don’t care. They think the same thing. Those who think differently know he’s a liar but they’d not agree with him even it were a better lie.
Somewhere out there is one person who bought it. I suspect I’m related to at least one.
But the one offsets the negatives of getting busted.
Richard Aubrey,
I don’t agree that the one offsets the negatives. I think he is now discredited by a lot of people who didn’t know much about him before, and somewhat of a laughingstock. Plus, his doubling down arguments made him look even more the fool, IMHO.
What Neo just said.
I don’t mind so much that he made the mistake — people do make mistakes, and none of us is exempt from that.
The whole thing would have blown over, in my opinion, had he apologized immediately. “Sorry, everybody. Of course, as we all know, the Constitution does not prohibit hate speech — it protects speech of all sorts. I was talking off the top of my head, and I said something I should have known would sound stupid. Sorry. I’ll think more carefully before I talk in the future.”
But he didn’t do that, did he? He pretended to have said something different from what we all know he actually said, and got upset at US for misunderstanding him.
Nice try, little boy. But when you get your hand caught in the cookie jar, you take it like a man and learn your lessons from it. All you’re doing now is acting like an infant… and making sure we will treat you as one.
Hussein is very popular, not despite being a pathological liar… but because he is a pathological liar, that is the only kind of person that other liars can understand or empathize with. The honest ones are the “marks”, you see. The prey.
Neo. I should have been more clear. For the lib/left/prog, this is a win. In their model, they win.
IMO, there are three categories for them.
Those who believe and don’t mind or prefer lying if necessary and aren’t upset by seeing Cuomo lying.
Those who disagree already and see a lie as only frosting.
Those two categories aren’t moved by Cuomo lying.
The third category is as little as one person buying it.
So there’s nothing lost in the first two categories and the one is, thus, net profit.
A drive by. Gansta spews some spray and pray, hits 5 women, 1 mother, 2 children, and the gang target.
Gang target is their win.