The Madness of the Mainstream Media: "They Are Owned by Their Hate"

Elizabeth Scalia at The Anchoress has written an excellent, very articulate post on the role of the mainstream media following the Arizona tragedy.  Scalia is spot on in describing the motivations of the mainstream media:  it is hate, pure and simple.  She writes:

Where Sarah Palin is concerned, the mainstream press and the political pundit class are like 14 year olds obsessing over the social order of the cafeteria, and especially that stupid new cootie girl, ewwww.

They are the spiteful, malevolent and immature teenagers in “Carrie,” armed with pig-blood and just looking for any opportunity to pour it.

They are repulsive in their clique; one wants to take them by their shoulders and shake them and say “grow up! GROW UP!”

They are also stupid. They are stupid because they favor instinctive damnation over intellectual discernment. If they had simply reported the horrific story of Arizona’s chaos, without passion, without prejudice, and followed its course, like professional journalists, Sarah Palin would not be on anyone’s mind today. She would not be garnering the sympathetic defenses of people like Chait, or Charles Krauthammer or Alan Derschowitz or even little old me. This event would have transcended Sarah Palin–and all of their hate–as it should have.

But they are owned by their hate. On the furled lip and malicious smear of one small man, the mainstream media let loose the dogs of their own hellish madness; they have exposed themselves, in a shocking way, as unthinking automatons, incapable of reason, interested only in establishing a framework or a narrative that will destroy those whom they hate, and uphold those they love, and there is no middle-ground for thoughtful wondering.

There is only the pig-blood in a bucket, ready to be released or stayed on instruction.

Read Scalia's entire post here.

Hat tip:  Da Tech Guy

Christina Taylor Green, 9, Laid to Rest in Arizona

Christina Taylor Green
September 11, 2001 - January 8, 2011

Christina Taylor Green was the youngest victim in the shooting rampage of the Arizona lunatic last Saturday.  She was laid to rest today in Tucson.

A flag recovered from the wreckage of the Twin Towers was flown at her funeral.  

Christina was born on a day of a violent attack, September 11, 2001, and left this world as the result of another, on January 8, 2011.

Read about it here.

Yaqui "Native American" Gives Strange Prayer at Arizona Memorial

There's been a lot of commentary on the web about this strange prayer given by a Yaqui descendant at the Arizona memorial service. This "Indian" blesses all the doors of the room, male and female energy, blah blah blah. This is so PC!

Violent and Hateful: Leftist T Shirt Features Rifle Scope on Sarah Palin

Surveyor Marks

Left Wing Hatred

Yesterday it was disclosed that the so-called "cross-hairs" in the Sarahpac map were actually a surveyor's mark, of the type that is often used on maps.  Today some leftists have posted the right side graphic as their response:  an image of Sarah Palin's head in a rifle scope, with the slogan, "Calm down!  It's just a surveyor's mark!"

Why do surveyor marks resemble the cross-hairs of a rifle scope?  Because surveyors use a scope of their own, with cross-hairs, as a tool for measuring the dimensions of land.  How do you tell which is which?  By the context in which it is used.  If such marks are on a map, it is likely they are a surveyor's mark.  If such a mark is on the face of a nationally known political figure, it is obvious the mark is intended to be a rifle's scope.  The image above right (used on a T shirt) is another leftist call for assassination, thinly disguised as a joke.  Who then are the purveyors of hatred and the advocates of violence?

Hat tip to Proof Positive.

Mark Levin Rebuts Chris Matthews; Describes MSNBC as a Failed Network

Chris Matthew, host of the TV program "Hard Ball," attributed the Arizona violence to the rhetoric of Mark Levin and Michael Savage.  In this audio file, Levin rebuts Matthews and calls his network "MSLSD."

Levin takes particular delight in describing MSNBC as an unprofitable and unpopular network whose ratings are in the tank.

Levin asks if anyone in the Loughner household ever listened to MSNBC or "Hard Ball."  If so, perhaps it was Chris Matthews himself who caused the Arizona tragedy.  Levin, of course, wasn't serious in proposing this possible scenario, but in demonstrating the utter subjectiveness of such self-serving allegations.

Listen to it here.

Democrats Use Arizona Tragedy to Restrict Freedoms

Democrats have long stacked the political deck in their favor.  They did this by attaining overwhelming representation in the mainstream media -- all of the largest newspapers and all of the television networks were solidly Democrat. They were the gatekeepers of public knowledge and news slant.  Stories that were inconvenient to the Democrat cause were killed, buried or just not published.  News that doesn't see the light of day isn't news at all.  The public could only read or view news that the liberals allowed, and that reporting was often editorials in disguise.

Another weapon the Democrats used was the so-called "fairness doctrine."  That meant that editorial opinion in public media had to provide a forum for opposing views.  Many radio and television stations didn't editorialize because of this.  When the "fairness doctrine" was ended, talk radio bloomed.  Rush Limbaugh created a huge radio audience for his show and took Democrats and liberals to task over their policies, vigorously refuting their arguments and assailing their assumptions.  Other talk radio shows soon followed, with Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Michael Savage and others starting radio shows of their own.

With the coming of Fox News, the Democrat monopoly on news and opinion was finally ended and the Dems have been chafing ever since.  They want to bring back the "fairness doctrine," not because it was fair, but because it wasn't.  The fairness doctrine suppressed vigorous political debate, and vigorous debate is not helpful to the Democrat cause of big government and high taxes.

Politico states:

Today Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine – a move aimed directly at talk radio – while Media Matters CEO David Brock asked Rupert Murdoch to rein in or possibly even fire Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

Other Democrat attacks on freedom were noted in my posts yesterday, on their planned curbs of gun ownership and restrictions on free speech.  Since a majority of Americans are opposed to such legislation, the Democrats hope to pass it during a moment of national angst, horror and grief over the Arizona shootings.  Never let a good tragedy go to waste.


Meanwhile, the odious left continues its blood libel:

While discussing Saturday's shooting in Tucson MSNBC host Chris Matthews specifically names Mark Levin and Michael Savage.

"Every time you listen to them, they are furious. Furious at the left. With anger that just builds and builds in their voice and by the time they go to commercial they are just in some rage every night with some ugly talk. Ugly sounding talk and it never changes," Matthews said.

Yes, I am furious at the left, too.  Furious over their assault on our constitutional freedoms, on their concerted effort to turn our nation into a bankrupt banana republic.  If we weren't furious, I suppose they could carry out their dismantling of America without opposition.  They'd like that, but it's not going to happen.

Death of Responsible Journalism in Arizona (Cartoons)

Democrats Had Their Own "Target Map" Complete With Bulls Eyes (Image)

The Left has been trying to pin the Arizona shootings on Sarah Palin.  Yes, it is ridiculous and extreme.  They have showed a political map from Sarah PAC that shows Republican-leaning districts and those districts are marked with "gun sight cross-hairs."  See it here.

Fox News ran this image last night.  It shows that the Democrats had their own "targeting" map, complete with bulls-eyes, six years before Sarah Palin did.  The map below was released by the DNC for the 2004 elections.  Note the use of military metaphors, i.e. "behind enemy lines."  Such metaphors are often used in politics and mean absolutely nothing.  Once again, Democrat hypocrisy is on display.

Glenn Reynolds: Democrats Call Republicans "Accomplices to Murder"

The extremist rhetoric being disseminated by the Democrats following the Arizona murders is almost unprecedented.  However, Glenn Reynolds in the Wall Street Journal deflates the Left's hot air balloon in his article today:  The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel.  He writes:

Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill.

With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate."

However, who has created the climate of hate, and who are its targets, is clearly open to debate. Reynolds concludes:

There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source.

If you read nothing else today, do read this article here.

Sarah Palin's "Cross-Hairs" Map: Much Ado About Nothing

The map on the left is from Sarah Palin's PAC, which designated Democrat-held districts that were targeted by Republican hopefuls.

Now the Democrat propaganda machine is broadcasting the notion that the "cross-hairs" on the map somehow inspired a 22 year old crazy into shooting Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

Is this map really outlandish?  Does anyone seriously believe it implies or advocates violence?  Even more absurd, does anyone seriously believe that the shooter was motivated by this map?

RIDICULOUS.

The Democrats real purpose is to smear Sarah Palin and reduce her political influence through innuendo, character assassination and outright lies.

The Left cannot win in a fair debate of the issues.  They can only win through mind games, propaganda and smear tactics.


UPDATE: It appears that the symbols used on the Palin map are actually surveyor symbols, not rifle scopes.






















UPDATE:  The Democrats had their own "target" map before Sarah Palin did.  The map below was used by the Democrat National Committee in the 2004 elections.  Note the bulls eyes on the "targeted" districts.  Also note the use of war-like imagery, i.e. "behind enemy lines."  Such metaphors have long been used in politics and mean absolutely nothing.  Again, Democrat hypocrisy is on full display here. 

The Liberal "Script": Gun Violence Motivated by "Conservative Anger"

Lawrence Auster isn't always right.  I've been meaning to rebut his odd post regarding the term "Political Correctness," but the Arizona shootings pointed my attention towards more substantial fare.  However, Auster is usually right and is again this morning.  He writes:

EVEN AS THE LIBERALS' BIG LIE ABOUT CONSERVATIVES' RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MASSACRE IS BEING RAPIDLY DISCREDITED BY THE FACTS, THE LIBERALS CAN'T LET GO OF IT 

As reported in this morning's New York Times, the FBI has found written statements in Jared Loughner's home showing that he planned to murder Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, but has found no indications as to why he targeted her. The article goes on to mention Loughner's repeated disruptive behavior, in five classroom incidents involving campus police, which led to his being suspended from Pima Community College.

Notwithstanding the complete absence of any knowledge of Loughner's motives for seeking to kill Giffords, the Times ends the story with this:

Nobody knew for sure what compelled the gunman. Ms. Giffords, who represents the Eighth District, in the southeastern corner of Arizona, has been an outspoken critic of the state's tough immigration law, which is focused on identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants, and she had come under criticism for her vote in favor of the health care law.

To repeat, there is no evidence that Loughner had any interest in the illegal alien issue or in Gifford's stand on it. Indeed, there is no more evidence that Gifford's position on the illegal alien law motivated Loughner's attack on her, than there is evidence that Giffords's position on Afghanistan or taxes or the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting motivated his attack on her. Yet the Times couldn't refrain from tossing off the hint that Loughner shot Giffords because of her opposition to Arizona's controversial law on illegal aliens.

But here, I think, is the silver lining. That final, cheap-shot paragraph in the Times article may be the fading echo of the leftist media's attempt to blame the Tucson massacre on the right. The facts showing that Loughner was a mentally ill person who had nothing to do with conservatism have been widely disseminated. The left realizes that they can no longer sustain their Big Lie that Loughner was a conservative motivated by "conservative anger." But the skunks at the Times couldn't completely abandon their pet notion that the massacre was caused by right-wing hatred, since that charge, as Robert C. insightfully shows in the previous entry, is central to their own ideological identity. "To the believer," Robert writes, "the unfounded accusation itself is offered as a testimonial of belief to other fellow believers."

Liberalism, as I have said many times, is not about reality; it is about the perpetual reenactment of the sacred liberal "script" in which virtuous, inclusive liberals demonstrate their virtue by suppressing bigoted conservatives.

Auster's post is here.  He makes reference to an email written by one Robert C of Nashville, which is also worthy of a read, as it has insights into the workings of the liberal mind.