An Eclipse of Tragedy and Opportunity: When Media Spin Transforms

Political Discourse and the Tucson Shootings
Should the tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was gravely wounded in a Shooting Spree that left 14 injured and six dead, become a "teachable moment" about hate and polarization in American political discourse?  Yes—not because of the shooting but because of its aftermath. First there was the blame game on the left, with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and others jumping with indecent haste to pin the shootings on right-wing and Tea Party Rhetoric. In fact, the gun...

The Golden Goose and His Smooth-Talking Devils Hit A Speed Bump
This week the media's attention went from the "golden-voiced" celebrity building of Ted Williams to the heated blitzkrieg mission of "blood Libel" against Sarah Palin, the average American Citizen movement of the Tea Party, Talk Radio personalities, etc. (everyone except the authentic lunatic fringe of society who actually sprayed a gathering of innocent people with a full clip of bullets) ... So, I thought I'd bring you up to speed a bit on the Homeless man that grabbed everyone's attention one...

Two Videos to Watch; Eric Fullers Edited Hyperbole and Pat Caddell Calls Krugman an Asshole
First, there is Eric Fuller and his comments to Democracy Now.  Basically he said things like this: “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Eric Fuller, a former campaigner for Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, told Democracy Now. “Their wish for Second Amendment Activism has been fulfilled.” But I want you to watch the original video, and listen carefully. It’s risible in many ways, but notice what he doesn’t say....

Jared Loughner's G-String
Eric Fuller, a 63-year-old Veteran and survivor of the Tucson shootings pulled no punches in assigning authorship for Jared Loughner’s actions. In an interview with Democracy Now, Fuller related the thoughts he wrote down while in the Hospital.  “How many other people? How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment Activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leadin...

MSNBC Exonerates Jared Loughner
Jared Loughner almost certainly had never heard of Sarah Palin back in 2007 when he first developed the psychotic fixation on Gabrielle Giffords that climaxed in mass Murder. He did not follow the news, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he was motivated in any way by any conservative. But that's not going to stop MSNBC from exploiting the tragedy. Spinning the news is behind this astonishingly vile network. Now they invent it out of whole cloth. Check out the graphic they've been running ...

Whats the Vitriol About?
Paul Krugman says there’s no room for middle ground in American politics: One side of American politics considers the modern Welfare State — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the Capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal . It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate. The other side believes that people have a right to keep what t

Who's toxic now?
John Robson of the Ottawa Citizen (a true conservative, that rare breed in Canadian journalism) answers the question: Toxic commentary about toxic commentary The irony in commentary about toxic American political Rhetoric after Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot is how toxic the commentary is. If the American right really had a particular penchant for murderous language and ideas it would be important to say it. But it's just not true. In one sense it doesn't matter because the...

Elsewhere: Confront the Demons Inside Our Party
Andrew Cuomo is Fundraising for his upcoming Budget battle with labor. Wayne Barrett: "A long investigative piece on a figure in state or city government is never going to compete with a short piece on Lindsay Lohan. If every form of journalism is thrown in the same basket and it's simply a matter of counting the hits then people who do the kind of work that Tom [Robbins] and I do, our value is going to diminish." The Onion marvels at how political pundits are able to channel the inner-working...

Pat Buchanan Tells Chris Matthes "You Guys [Are] The Birthers of the Left"
This had occurred to me. Buchanan got there first. Matthews reacts exactly like a Truther to this too. A Truther (note I changed the terms of debate from Birther to Truther) brings up his crazy ideas, states his crazy idea, but then when challenged, he stops asserting the craziest part of his idea and starts claiming he means something more modest. Like, a Truther will start saying "I'm just raising questions" and claiming he "doesn't know" who put those non-existent explosive charges in all 11...

Did the "Healer-In-Chief" blame America for the Tucson tragedy?
Liberal pundit Kirsten Powers, writing in the Daily Beast, makes some interesting, and highly pertinent, points on Obama's Speech at Wednesday night's "Together We Thrive" memorial service/pep rally for the Victims of last Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson. Although she was clearly impressed with the speech, generally, she saw through the Rhetoric that Barack Obama essentially assigned the blame ... "to all of America." Powers writes: True, as always, he delivered as "Healer-in-Chief" and pr...

GOP chief Michael Steele drops bid
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Embattled GOP Chairman Michael Steele dropped his re-election bid Friday amid declining support as the Republican National Committee, coming off huge election victories but facing a $22 million Debt and an internal war over the party’s identity, voted to elect a new chairman. “I will step aside because I think the party is ready for something different,” Steele told the 168-member committee after losing ground over four rounds of balloting. He endors...

this should be the new nra motto
words don't incite guns to kill people. words incite people to kill people: "how many other demented people are out there? It looks like palin, beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. their wish for Second Amendment Activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to Murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls." there was a little girl named christina green, nine years old, who is o...

Paul Krugman, Somewhat Leashed
Is Paul Krugman actually trying to heed Obama’s call for civility in Friday’s column “A Tale Of Two Moralities”? He seems to be straining not to unleash the inner Krugman, albeit not particularly effectively. On Wednesday, President Obama called on Americans to “expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Those were b...

Sarah Palins next speaking engagement is at Safari Club International
Posted by Jennifer Caballero on Jan 14 2011 Filed under News & Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry The MSM is already calling it a gun convention, because that is how they want to drive the false narrative about Conservatives and guns. However, Sarah Palin is set to attend a hunters convention in late January for a Speaking Engagement. ...

Tucson Survivor Claims Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Sharron Angle 'Got Their First Target'
At Communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!, "Tucson Shooting Survivor: 'It Looks Like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the Rest Got Their First Target'." (Via Memeorandum.) PREVIOUSLY : "Harvard's Jill Lepore Ties Jared Loughner to Tea Party 'Constitution Worship'." ...

Jeb Bush blasts heated political tone in U.S.
Coral Gables, Florida (CNN) - Jeb Bush believes that the tone of political debate in America has gotten too hot so he's urging a "restoration of civility across the board." And Bush is critical of those who, he thinks, are unnecessarily firing up heated Rhetoric. He's urging that "leaders have to lead," though Bush did not name any names. The younger brother of former President George W. Bush, who's also mentioned as a possible Presidential Candidate, made the comments on Friday at the Hispanic ...

Cops: Photos Show Loughner Wearing Red G-String, Holding Glock
Before he allegedly went on a mass Killing Spree Saturday, Jared Lee Loughner had photos of himself developed at a local Walgreens that showed him dressed in a bright red g-string, a Glock 9mm gun next to his naked buttocks, the New York Times reports. Law Enforcement sources told the newspaper that the photos, turned over by Walgreens, showed Loughner holding the gun by his crotch. It is not clear when the photos, presumably shot in a mirror, were taken. [TPM SLIDESHOW: On The Ground In Arizo...

Jared Lee Loughner Uber Alles? More Debate on Gun Nuttery
Ray, you ignorant...oh, never mind... I've posted my latest riposte to my colleague Ray Stern's passionate defense of Second Amendment gun nuttery, here in Valley Fever. It's a response to Ray's response to my response to his original opinion piece, in which he casually used bogus straw man arguments to score points. This is getting to be a lot like the old "Point/Counterpoint" segments on 60 Minutes, or Saturday Night Live's spoof of it. For the record, in this debate, despite the left-right ...

Bill Maher Asks Hostile Audience if They Read Bill Maher Unhinged Video
Bill Maher gives his best performance, ever, on Jay Leno by saying rightwingers think it would be fun to kill those who disagree with them. Maher quotes the “rightwing” saying “wouldn’t it be fun to kill the people we disagree with?” Listen to the audience reaction to this maniacal rant. He asks them if they “read.” “Stop the bullsh*t about the Second Amendment and the Constitution” he says. My hubby asks if Maher reads? Does he think all the...

Tea Party Caucus set to meet
(CNN) - The Senate Tea Party Caucus will convene for the first time January 27, featuring members of local Tea Party groups and Republican Senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky. According to the statement, they will discuss spending proposals, options for balancing the Budget, ending the Deficit and limiting the size of government. "The folks who made the Tea Party such a force to be reckoned with in the last election can have an enduring impact...

Left Still Making Stuff Up, Claiming Loughner Got His Ideas From DAVID-WYNN: MILLER
It's simply not true. I was willing to give the theory a shot, mostly just because crazy is interesting, but there is no connection between DAVID-WYNN: MILLER and Loughner. Sorry: Another long post, and deployed to destroy a silly nit. But this seems to be the Patient Zero of their viral insanity, so I wound up spending a lot of time and words quarantining it. The left (here, Mother Jones) is riding this pony hard because as of yet there is nothing else to connect Loughner to anyone arguably o...

The Ever-Expanding Regulatory State: The People Are the Key to Stopping It
The lead editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal argues that the battle to rein in the federal regulatory state will be one of the lead political stories of 2011. The editors champion the Reins Act, which would require congressional approval for all new major regulations — those expected to impose a burden of more than $100 million on The Economy. That would be a sound solution, but whatever Congress does, it must do something, and it must do it now. Today’s federal regulatory...

Remembering Our Fallen Week: The Tragedy In Wasilla
Your Wonkbot kept us safe from terror, before becoming another Victim in the tragedy in Tuscan, Arizona, like fellow cylon Sarah Palin. Starved for attention (her TLC show ended this week), Sister Sarah made a Controversial hate movie (Crash 2), shot on location in her Wasilla meth factory. Jared Lee Loughner should have just gone into gun sales, as he has a clear talent for moving them off the shelves. “Houdini of the Senate,” Joe Manchin, says he would never shoot a man, unless he ...

From Dallas to Tucson
An American politician takes a bullet to the head in broad daylight. Three days later, under the headline “The spiral of hate,” The New York Times editorial board has this to say about it: “None of us can escape a share of the fault for the spiral of unreason and violence that has now found expression in [gunfire].” In the same spirit, a U.S. Supreme Court justice blames the act on “the hatred and bitterness that has been injected into the life of our nation by bigots.”

Three Reasons Republicans Can Cheer for T-Paw
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has been doing the rounds lately, promoting his new book and signaling quite clearly that he is going to run for president. He's still pretty much an unknown quantity among the mass public, but I think there are a lot of reasons for Conservatives to take a close look at him. Here are three. (1) He's good on Budgets. This is a huge deal for the Republican Party. For the last ten years, the party...