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Defensively Spinning the Truth Away
There’s a fair amount of spin going on regarding yesterday’s tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum and as a result, many Republican and conservative leaning blogs and writers are on the defensive as their political opposites attempt to score points.
It looks, in fact, very much as it did in April when the DHS report came out.
Unfortunately for the defense, though, I’m afraid that report was right — at least, as it applies to the shooter yesterday.
Since I’m a bit late to the TMV party on this incident, I’ve put my main post at Polimom Too.
11 Responses to “Defensively Spinning the Truth Away”
In your main post you refer to this nut as a “right wing extremist”.
Is that because he was violently anti-Christian? Maybe it was his 9/11 truther position? How about his hatred of Bush and Cheney?
What do we normally call people with these tendencies? (Hint: center-left moderates)
Apparently, he didn’t care for Jews. He seems to have the same views as Rev. Wright. Are we classifying the Right Reverend as a right winger now?
He and Senator Robert Byrd shared the same views on blacks. Byrd now speaks differently in public, but continues on as a proud Democrat with a KKK resume.
Sometimes, you just need to classify a crazy person as a crazy person, without trying to score the political points.
Polimom
Hope you're ready to catch some flak for this.
Eventually, people need to realize that some government agencies are not partisan, merely protective. The DHS report became a political football for the points counters.
Unfortunately, that report would not have stopped this attack. Crazies with weapons will eventually strike despite our greatest precautions. As long as cautions by experts are ignored or manipulated for mundane political reasons, attacks like this will increase.
Heated political rhetoric merely feeds the delusions of broken minds, so I hope that the next political “bomb thrower” in the political realm can see how one's polemic becomes tragedy in the real world.
JW Since when are white supremacists now part of the radical left?
This line is absurd:
What do we normally call people with these tendencies? (Hint: center-left moderates)
Rudi,
Once again, with emphasis on the point of my comment.
I’m not saying this guy was a left-winger. I pointed out that he hates Christians, thought 9/11 was a fake and really hated Bush, Cheney and the neocons.
He was a universal hater. He hated everyone. You could just as accurately describe him as left wing as right wing.
I’m saying that the people who are trying to score political points by tying him to Republican and conservatives are being dishonest.
“In your main post you refer to this nut as a “right wing extremist”.”
I did? Where? I quoted others using that term, jwest, but I can't find the quote of my own to which you refer.
“I’m saying that the people who are trying to score political points by tying him to Republican and conservatives are being dishonest.”
I said that too, in slightly different words. Here's how I put it:
“Right-wing extremist” is not synonymous with Republican or conservative, anymore than “left-wing extremist” is with Democrat or liberal.
“The operative words are “wing” and “extremist”…. and von Brunn is quite obviously in the winged extremist category.”
Not sure why you're getting on me here, jwest. Help me out.
Polimom,
You’re absolutely right. I misread the main post and attributed the “right wing extremist” portion to you. Apparently, I am guilty of what I accuse so many of here, which is reading what you think someone is saying instead of what they actually said.
I’ll try to do better in the future.
(Now, how about posting an article on Letterman’s non-apology so that I can relieve some of this anti-left wing tension?)
PM, great overall point.
2 quibbles with your coloration:
Even if the DHS report became a political football, was it really that insightful? Could you not have likely penned its principal conclusions sitting in your kitchen for a couple of hours? While the right may be wrong to get overly bent out of shape over its descriptive nouns and adjectives, I can't help but read the posts of the left as suggesting this was some sort of Holy Grail of new insights into risk.
Secondly, while you bemoan the politicization of the topic, do you not belong to a spectrum of the blogging community that tends to be 80% dedicated to the events of partisan politics, whose authors go out of their way to caption headlines and lead-in sentences that immediately suggest a partisan position as opposed to dispassionate analysis?
CO — Hunh? You have a quibble with my “coloration” because I write about politics? Apparently because it's often a partisan arena in which [some] authors use partisan ledes? And that I therefore have reaped what I've sown?
Hunh?
Are you sure your quibble is with me? (Seems like I'm having to say this a lot lately, but… can you help me out here?)
Pronouns were intended more collective than singular…….sorry for the offense.
Thanks, CO, for clarifying. No worries, not offended. Just confused.
I have no problem saying that there are right wing extremists who pose a threat to security (and some left wing extremists too) but it does seem that this particular guy hated just about everyone and didn't fit neatly into one wing or the other. Seems like most of his views were closer to the extreme right segment of white supremacy, but he did in fact also post anti-Christian rants and 9/11 trutherism, plus rants against neocons. There's a report today too that he may have been planning to attack the offices of the Weekly Standard (apparently because of the neocon angle.)
So to me the point is that yes, extremists exist, but when one side of the political spectrum tries to make examples of people from what they believe to be the other side's fringe- sometimes they're stretching the point because there are often some common features of the left and right fringe. Areas that sometimes overlap are extreme hatred and bigotry toward Jews, antiglobalization, anti-free trade, and a strong desire for an isolationist foreign policy.
And on that DHS report, even when events like this occur it doesn't justify an overly broad and nonspecific targeting which was implied by the report. Even Napolitano had to walk back on the report. The danger that was pointed out by conservatives was the broad brush implications which could well lead to a McCarthyist environment toward right wing activists. Just because there really were some Communist sympathizers who may have threatened national security during that era doesn't justify the chilling effect of the overreaction that occurred.