Thread by @DrewHolden360

🧵Thread🧵

Vilifying people in their obituaries is, simply put, a bad, inhumane development. There’s also a lot of hypocrisy in how it’s done.

If you don’t believe me, look at how yesterday’s passing of former Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compares to Cuban butcher Fidel Castro.⤵️.

I’ll be honest. I think a lot of these don’t need much of an introduction; I trust all of you can read.

Here’s @AP. Notice anything different between the obits of a former military leader and a brutal tyrant?

Can you tell which is which?

@NPR found the space to take a dig at Rumsfeld in the headline of his obit.

For some reason, they couldn’t do the same for Fidel Castro.

We had something similar for @washingtonpost. Once again, Rumsfeld is billed as controversial.

For Castro, he was a “revolutionary leader who remade Cuba”

I mean. Cmon. @TheAtlantic

I’m fine if @thedailybeast doesn’t want to pull punches. That’s their brand.

But what about the victims of Castro? Are they less deserving of mourning? How come they don’t get a shoutout in the tweet?

This from @Reuters was also a common thing.

For an easy partisan target, focus on the controversy around their death. For someone who doesn’t fall into that category - even if they’re far more deserving of scorn - keep it just to a straight news obit.

Same thing here from @BusinessInsider

I know it doesn’t quite fit but really what are we doing here @Slate?

Pretty hard to pretend these from @guardian each provide the same, fair level of commentary.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like “The Hell Fidel Castro Built” would make a little more sense, @intelligencer.

Less than subtle, @TeenVogue

Obviously I didn’t have high expectations from @ajplus but I mean, this is bad.

This from @thenation presented without comment.

Not a media outlet but honorable mention goes to @cmclymer

Also honorable mention to @JohnSimpsonNews, who couldn’t find anything good to say about Rumsfeld but found a lot good to say about Castro.

Anyone who follows me knows that I don’t exactly share former Secretary Rumsfeld’s view of the world.

But why - why - is it necessary to excoriate the recently deceased the moment their passing is announced? And if it’s so important, why isn’t it applied across the board?

Anyway, I wish people would save their Twitter dunks until a family has at least had a funeral. And I hope you’ll pray for the repose of the soul of Donald Rumsfeld and all others who leave this world.

Last thought: I think part (maybe a lot?) of this is a result of the coarsening of the discourse over the last couple years.

Many like to blame that on President Trump. But I can’t imagine any of these outlets/people count themselves as fans of his, which begs a question.