Opinion Forum

A Delicious Orgy

January 17th, 2011

Game, set and match to the leftist media. Once again, they have defined the issue and set the terms of the debate on the horrific shootings in Arizona last weekend.

He who defines the issues wins. Period. And the liberal media has the right on the ropes — putting them, once again, in the lose-lose proposition of proving a negative.

Along the lines of “Have you quit beating your wife?”, the new template fostered by the leftist media focuses on the riveting question of who caused a lone nut to express his inner self by blowing away a federal judge, a 9 year-old girl and an unfortunate Congresswoman. As the media has pretty much ignored the other fatalities killed by this loon, I’m left calling them incidental casualties.

Oh, the delicious opportunities…. The President finally had a chance to show his empathy on a global stage. And not incidentally, roll out the new slogan for his re-election campaign. The T-shirts made available to mourners didn’t mention the dead. They proclaimed instead Obama’s new slogan: “Together We Thrive.” Huh? American Thinker has a wonderful piece on the origins of this phrase. I digress….

Assorted elected officials seized the opportunity to opine on the absolute dangers they face every day as they diligently toil for the people. “Aren’t we brave?” they imply, as they jockey for the new status symbol of a taxpayer funded bodyguard.

Making hay while the going is good, Sen. Barbara Boxer called for federal regulations on concealed weapons permits. Ignoring the reality that a few concealed weapons would have stopped this nut job in his tracks.

Meanwhile, Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, taking a cue from Emanuel regarding never letting a good crisis go to waste, is demanding the return of the “Fairness Doctrine,” which would compel radio stations to grant equal time to leftist views.

Various friends of both the shooter and the shot also got a chance to grab their 15 minutes of fame. Finally, they’re somebody.

The right, once again, entered the fray on the defense. Forced to rebut emotional statements totally devoid of facts, they nevertheless chimed in, denying that they are the cause of this nut job’s inner angst.

All the spokesmen on the right joined in this non-debate. From Rush Limbaugh, to Glenn Beck, to Neal Boortz, to Bill O’Reilly — all have fallen into the media trap of being forced to prove a negative. All having forgotten the first rule of debate — by acknowledging a baseless accusation, you enable it.

Like teenagers in high school, the headlines abound with “he said, she said.” Accusations fly, opinions are expressed and solutions are proposed. This is what passes for national discourse today.

Meanwhile, vital news goes unreported. News of a possible downgrade of America’s credit rating. News of the push to replace the dollar with China’s Yuan. News that confirmed the feds were well aware of our current housing crisis back in 2005. And did nothing. I could go on.

What a delicious orgy. The media and assorted politicians had carte blanche to speculate what was in another’s heart without being bound by fact checkers. And assert themselves as moral and caring people, to boot.

I have no doubt the media and politicians are patting themselves on the backs for having turned this tragedy to their advantage. And I expect they will have more tragedies to confront as more and more idiots issue forth from government schools pumped full of unearned self esteem, focusing like a laser on their own rights, with never a thought to the attendant responsibilities.

This whole embarrassing episode says something very bad about the current state of America’s media and our political elites. That a piece of white trash with a gun could dominate the headlines for a full week as Iran goes nuclear and America teeters on the economic brink should cause Americans grave concern about our national priorities.

(This article was also posted at Right Bias.)

Articles written by Nancy Morgan
Tags: advantage, Arizona, conservative, liberal, Obama, shooting, speech, tragedy
Categories: Media, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

One Response to “A Delicious Orgy”

Tom Carter | January 17th, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Well said, Nancy. In the ridiculous reactions of most of the media to this terrible tragedy, there are some truths. The language of much of the media and of pundits and talkers is often excessively vitriolic, and there are too many violent metaphors in common use. That applies to both the right and the left, although each side typically expresses itself somewhat differently. And it doesn’t apply just to the media; in Congress in particular it seems that comity and mutual respect have gone out the window.

I’ve been following a proposal from a few Democrats that instead of sitting on their respective sides of the House chamber during the State of the Union address, the members of both parties should be mixed together so that there aren’t identifiable blocs. I’ve heard a few reactions to that idea from the right, to the effect that it’s nothing more than a cynical ploy to hide the overwhelming numbers of Republicans now in Congress. Seems like they can’t even effectively try to get along with each other….

It’s interesting that even the media has come to understand the fact that there is absolutely no evidence that the shooter was motivated by right-wing rhetoric, or, for that matter, politics at all. Some of the more liberal usual suspects have grudgingly admitted as much. Paul Krugman, the uberliberal NYT columnist, was quick into the party line with a column right after the shooting. Some days later, he wrote a more moderate second column that, without actually doing it, admitted that he was wrong. That second column is worth reading; just ignore a bit of the standard leftist drivel he can’t seem to resist.