This is now, that was then
Within hours, maybe minutes, of the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords, Liberal pundits began to point fingers at right wing extremists which, apparently, applied to Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican candidate for Vice President. Of particular concern was the “cross-hairs” image, used by Palin to establish which Democrats to target in upcoming elections. Evidently and, coincidentally after-the-fact, such violent imagery and rhetoric was said to have led to the carnage in Tucson. The cross-hairs image was referenced by Barbara Walters (on The View) when she stated,
“…and certainly cross-hairs are very scary…”
I wonder how scary Ms. Walters thinks a depiction of the President getting assassinated is?
Back in 2006 I wrote a blog post, for RedBlueChristian.com, about a docudrama depiction of the assassination of President George W. Bush. Note that the TV movie was produced in the U.K. Per The London Standard,
Held up by a secret service bodyguard in his dying moments after being shot in the stomach, this is President Bush being assassinated.
Surrounded by a crowd of panicking onlookers, the American leader is pictured just seconds after being gunned down by a sniper following an anti-war demonstration.
Of course, this 2006 docudrama is just a drop in the bucket of violent left-wing rhetoric – rhetoric which typically goes unreported by the mainstream media.
Regardless of the political affiliation of our elected officials, let us remember to treat them all with the respect and dignity they deserve, especially when they are maligned by those who truly would hope to do them harm.
Filed under: Conservative • Democrats • Liberal • Media • Republicans • Rusty
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
So some filmmaker in London makes a drama about a president getting shot, and (1) you treat that as condoning violence against the right, and (2) you equate that with the beliefs of the left in general, especially in America?
You are wrong on both accounts. Even if you were correct, there is a big difference between what is said by individuals with no power and those who lead a political movement. Below are what some of the leadership on the right have said.
First the members of the supposedly liberal press:
Bill O’Reilly, Fox News: And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.
Bill O’Reilly, Fox News: They’ll never get it until they grab [LA Times Editorial Board member] Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off. And maybe when the blade sinks in, he’ll go, “Perhaps O’Reilly was right.”
Kathleen Parker, columnist: These bastards like Clark and Kerry and that incipient ass, Dean, and Gephardt and Kucinich and that absolute mental midget Sharpton, race baiter, should all be lined up and shot.
Melanie Morgan, talk-show host: A great deal of good could be done by arresting Bill Keller having him lined up against the wall and shot.
Ann Coulter, columnist: If I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.
Ann Coulter, in response to t.v. host asking how to talk to liberals:
I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days.
Rush Limbaugh: I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for.
Glenn Beck: I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,”
and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d
realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you
wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.
Now the politicians:
Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate: If this Congress
keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those
Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do
is take Harry Reid out.
Rep. Peter King: And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they’re the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove.
John Boehner, now House majority leader, declared that the passage of
health reform was “Armageddon.”
The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on “the firing line.”
And as we all know, Sarah Palin urged followers to lock and load, and put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.
Note that there is nothing equivalent in scope coming from leadership on the left. So yes, it is reasonable to SUSPECT that violent eliminationist rhetoric from spokespeople on the right could have contributed to the violent actions of a mentally disturbed person, though it is too early to ASSUME that that was the case. You seek to distract in order to avoid admitting that possibility.
Anon,
No, I was illustrating the difference in how the left and the liberal media treats a metaphor used by a Republican politician (a metaphor they have taken completely out of context) and how they treated (or, rather, ignored) a dramatized act of violence against a sitting U.S. President (to which dramatization can not be taken out of context). It’s not my intent to get into a spitting match on which side of the political spectrum uses more violent imagery (although I suspect it would be easy to demonstrate that the liberals dominate that arena).