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Political Hay
Biden Blamed Bush, Gingrich for Virginia Tech Shootings
VP silent on blame in Binghamton, Pittsburgh killings: a lesson from Mark Levin.
It was President Bush’s fault.
And Newt’s.
When a student went on a rampage and killed 32 students at Virginia Tech in April of 2007, then-Senator Joe Biden, at the time running for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, knew exactly who to blame. He pinned the blame squarely on the man in the Oval Office. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Now Vice President Joe Biden is silent on the topic of presidential responsibility for the mass murders in Binghamton and Pittsburgh. Nor has he laid blame at the feet of current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
What exactly had then-President Bush and ex-Speaker Gingrich done to set off Cho Seung-Hui, the South Korean immigrant who killed himself in the attack? The president and “the Gingrich revolution” of 1994 said Biden, were responsible for something he called “the politics of polarization.” Notwithstanding that the “Gingrich revolution” was 13 years earlier, Biden added darkly that the shootings “didn’t happen accidentally.” Coincidentally, Biden made the remarks in New York at an April gathering of the Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. They were reported at the time by Newsmax on April 20, 2007. Biden was back in New York City addressing the same group on Friday, when news broke of the Binghamton rampage that killed 14.
This time, however, Biden had a different reaction to a shooting spree.
“In Binghamton, someone entered a rec center where an examination was being given for…immigrants to become Americans…Walked in through the back door and allegedly shot and killed up to 13 people,” Biden said. “I don’t have any more details, except I’d ask you to keep these folks in your prayers. We’ve got to figure out a way to deal with this senseless, senseless violence.”
Unlike his remarks in April 2007 in which he blamed the incumbent Republican president and a former Republican Speaker of the House, Biden was silent as to whether Obama’s policies, which he himself is helping to shape, contributed in any way to the shooting. Nor did he offer his thoughts on whether the policies of fellow Democrat and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have been a contributory factor to the slaughter.
The very next day after Biden’s latest speech, in which he did not assign blame for the Binghamton shooting rampage, 23-year-old Richard Poplawski shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers. Why? The Associated Press quoted the killer’s best friend as saying Poplawski’s motive was “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and that the cop killer “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.”
Biden, uncharacteristically, has been completely silent. No Biden comments can be found on the linking by the killer of what he believed to be a forthcoming Obama policy to the vicious murder of the three Pittsburgh cops.
What we have here is, as the saying goes, a teachable moment. A horrifically sad one at that. It goes far beyond the yet-again foot-in-mouth antics of the garrulous politician who is the number two in the Obama administration.
Let’s turn to the new bestseller Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by radio talk show host Mark Levin. (Full disclosure: Mr. Levin is a former colleague from the Reagan administration.)
Specifically, the focus Levin gives at the very beginning of his book to the Conservative’s belief in the importance of the civil society. One of the conditions of a civil society, Levin writes, is respect for the individual as a “unique, spiritual being with a soul and a conscience.” But that respect for an individual’s freedom also brings in its turn responsibility by the individual. In the civil society, Levin writes, “the individual has a duty to respect the unalienable rights of others and the values, customs, and traditions, tried and tested over time and passed from one generation to the next, that established society’s cultural identity. He is responsible for attending to his own well-being and that of his family. And he has a duty as a citizen to contribute voluntarily to the welfare of his community through good works.” He or she must respect the rule of law.
Suffice to say, both the killer in Binghamton, Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Voong, and Pittsburgh’s American-born Poplawski utterly failed in the most basic task of not just American civil society but any civil society. They had what most American citizens treasure, what people from around the world stream into this country every day (legally and illegally) to achieve — the right to be treated as an individual. To exercise their freedom to, as Levin puts it, pursue their own legitimate interests in a civil society, to work towards the achievement of their dreams under the rule of law. Both men quite deliberately used their freedom, their individual choice, to violate the rule of law. To commit mass murder. And in the civil society there must be consequences for such actions to the individuals who took them. In fact there are. Voong shot himself to death, understanding surely that he would never be free a single minute longer after his capture. Poplawski, after shooting two cops point-blank in the head as they stood in his doorway and a third behind them, told a friend he would die that day. He didn’t, not having the guts to inflict the same punishment on himself that he had just served on the three policemen whose job it was to protect the citizens of the civil society of Pittsburgh. To enforce the rule of law. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provides the death penalty for cop killers. Mr. Poplawski killed three in cold blood, and it’s a safe bet that his fellow citizens in the civil society of a state once governed by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin will be watching his fate closely.
But there is a larger pattern here. And as the Biden accusations against Bush and Gingrich illustrate, a pattern that is both unhealthy for the country as well as capable of backfiring on the accuser. The pattern? Blaming not the individuals who committed the acts but others — a president or a former Speaker for example — in what is actually a move towards what Levin has accurately termed “political suppression.”
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (91) | Leave a comment
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drudge ette obama| 4.7.09 @ 6:17AM
Biden's comments may seem just stupid, but he is joining the chorus on priming the nation for dramatic gun control. Consider Hillary's statement about Mexican guns coming from the U.S.A. - which was grossly inaccurate. Biden should be ashamed to make good political hay from these two incidents, each brought about not by guns, but human mental instability. Newt Gingrich must be making some inroads per internal Democratic polling; now Rahm's guns are aimed at him.
Out of control Gun crimes| 4.7.09 @ 7:00AM
Anyone who does not recogonise that Gun Crimes in the United States as a serious problem is not thinking. America is a Crime ridden country, has been for many years, and is one of the most dangerious place on earth.
More people get killed per year in America than most War Zones, with the exception of Iraq.
May be there is a sinnister reason the Government wants more control on fire Arms, but one who is thinking, can understand why.
Deborah | 4.7.09 @ 7:16AM
Why did D.C. have such high crime? Because of gun control laws -- where those who are not criminals could not protect themselves from criminals. Criminals don't have trouble getting guns. Gun laws don't affect them because they don't follow the law -- that's who criminals are: law breakers. It's only the law abiding that are affected by gun laws.
Now that the Supreme Court has struck down the gun ban in D.C., let's see if crime goes down as well. Oh, and Chicago, where it's a crime to own or sell handguns? Has one of the highest crime rates as well. Their gun laws are now being challenged. Stay tuned.
Gun Crimes| 4.7.09 @ 7:18AM
3,012 Children Killed in 2002, one every 3 hours 8 children every day. 5,285 killed over all in 2002. Every day more than 80 people are killed due to Gun Violence, in America.
Canada 17, Japan 19, UK 57, Germany 109, France 153. Huge difference
JamesJ| 4.7.09 @ 7:33AM
Gee gun crimes, every city that has strict gun control laws has the highest gun crimes. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. So stay unarmed in your smug little latte world, but don't take my Freedoms.
Liberals are abject cowards
Pingback| 4.7.09 @ 7:33AM
Biden Blamed Bush for VT Shootings, Silent On Binghampton And Pittsburgh Attacks « Si links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Paul Bunker| 4.7.09 @ 7:42AM
It is standard practice for leftists who wish to have the government in control of everyone and everything to distort the truth into a lie repeated again and again until it becomes a "truth", a successful practice of the Nazis.
I grew up reading the Chicago Tribune when Col. Mc Cormick was the publisher. I learned to read with an eye for half truths, inferences, inuendos, omissions, all the practices of people who intend to mislead.
In reading the news on the Internet each morning I have learned, over time, which sources can be trusted to tell the whole truth.
Uncle Walter is a splendid example of the left wing "press." Caught him in a gross lie in 1957 and never afterward believed him.
Dad told me that lies have short legs and always get caught. The old gent was right.
Pingback| 4.7.09 @ 7:43AM
Biden Blamed Bush, Gingrich for VT Shootings - Southern Maryland Community Forums links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 4.7.09 @ 8:03AM
Biden Blamed Bush, Gingrich for VT Shootings - Southern Maryland Community Forums links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Big J| 4.7.09 @ 8:10AM
Methinks "Gun Crimes" sounds a little familiar (Dave Matthews, maybe?). Anyway, no matter. Our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. I hope and pray I never need it, but it sure does help me sleep at night knowing that protection for my wife and myself is at arms length - not a phone call to 911 to send the police to investigate.
Gun Crimes, please do a little more research before spewing your liberal talking points. Less gun control=less crime. Guns don't kill people (mine has never even come close to shooting someone), crazed lunatics kill people. Disarm the good guys, the bad guys take over.
Who knows, maybe I'll be nearby when the day comes that someone tries to mug you (I would say or your wife, but surely you don't have one. Otherwise you're first priority would be to protect her). I promise to step in and keep you from harm. Or, let me know, and I will call the police. After pressing 1 for english, they should be there shortly.
"Posthumously and with empty clips!"
Don L| 4.7.09 @ 8:25AM
When will conservatives learn that catching libeerals in contradiction and hypocrisy merely points to conservatives as having a different paradigm about modern man. Lying, deception, doing evil for power, whatever is necessary, any ends to a means, is the liberal's value system. It's is a virtue for a liberal to be in contradiction. Using traditional logic and moral systems to point out a liberals faults is like using peashooters to ward off anuclear attack. Liberals simply don't care about truth and goodness. They loathe such things, but play like good people (Abortion -it's for the children)
while conservatives spin their wheels -watching all that was once good self-destruct.
I_Dunno| 4.7.09 @ 8:34AM
I dunno, it seems awful strange that we have this toxic (to individual freedoms) mix in such a short time:
Most liberal, anti-freedom prez+outrageously anti-gun AG+all of a sudden slew of mass shootings since Jan 20th+media anti-gun hype machine=less freedom for you and me.
You can almost predict the cycle of mass shootings will increase when Dems are in power. What other way can they get the public whipped up into an anti-gun frenzy if there are no shootings happening on a weekly basis?
Mr Lord, Poplawski's reasoning is going to be used alright. It is going to be used to make him the face of the "conspiracy theorist right-wing nut jobs." You know, the ones Obama talked about who cling to guns and God? It is going to be used to where everyone who is even an eyelash on the right side of the political aisle will be looked at as a kook. Bigger kook if you own a gun. Every gun owner is going to be portrayed as just one little step away from going on a rampage. Wouldn't surprise me if we have calls for "concerned citizens" to report on folks who have guns and who make "extremist comments" like maybe disagreeing with the One.
Don't think it could happen in the USSA? Haha! Back in 02 the police in MD asked the same thing of the citizen-sheeple. When the two muslims were on their shooting spree the MD police asked the citizen-sheeple to turn in lonely white men who own Bushmaster rifles. Then the cops went and confiscated them for "ballistics testing."
I expect the Poplawski murders to be used to push some type of "mental health screening" before you can buy a gun.
stmichrick| 4.7.09 @ 9:01AM
The day we need to take the comments of Biden seriously is a sad day indeed.
Hank Rearden| 4.7.09 @ 9:11AM
Biden's comments were as expected, silly. Nobody is to blame when something like that happens except for the perpetrator. It is illogical to try and assign reason to an unreasonable person.
As far as gun control goes, that is the price of a free society. Bad things will happen from time to time, but at the end of the day we're better off being able to protect ourselves from criminals (in government or out). However, I am surprised by the number of "so-called liberals" who are always trying to control everything. Gun rights, the economy, speech, just to name a few. People like this are not true liberals. They're authoritarians posing as house pets.
Aaron| 4.7.09 @ 9:15AM
I agree stmichrick, I actually look quite forward to when The Biden speaks. Nothing to take serious, but always good for a laugh.
dm| 4.7.09 @ 9:15AM
gun crimes, are these "children" under 21 years of age and maybe gang members that are included in your numbers?
Howard Ino| 4.7.09 @ 9:37AM
Of course, Mr. Biden is looking for someone to plagiarize before he can comment.
Marc Jeric| 4.7.09 @ 9:55AM
This bloviating gasbag Biden should be ignored in order to preserve our sanity. What better example for congressional term limits?
Paul Crowley| 4.7.09 @ 10:04AM
The interenet is about the closest thing to Orwell's "Ministry of Truth," yet devised.
Only a variation on the old British tactic of "vitriol and instruction."
Deborah | 4.7.09 @ 10:08AM
To Mr. Lord's larger point -- collectivist thinking verses individual responsibility -- that is the theme that runs through the diffferences between liberals and conservatives. It is the reason so many conservatives have been disillusioned by the Republican Party as it has drifted ever further from its core principles.
Those members of the Republican elite who tend to drift away from Reagan and Constitutional rights do their party and their country a disservice.
Anthony| 4.7.09 @ 10:25AM
I think Don L has it exactly right. The left cannot be caught in any contradition or embarassing juxtaposition because none can exist in their minds and those of their guardians in the MSM.
Obama's weak response to the North Korean missle launch reaffirmed policies that the Bush Administration had undertaken i.e the 6 party talks, yet no reporter has called Obama on his previous criticism of these same Bush policies. Bottom line; the left is never accountable for anything, until & unless major changes occur in our society. End of story.
stmichrick| 4.7.09 @ 10:32AM
Aaron;
I wonder if Biden has real followers; besides his family and those who benefit from his political position?
Can you imagine anyone respecting him as a historical figure in the way Reagan is regarded? I will tell you that I respect Dick Cheney and even Joe Lieberman, as an example of someone I disagree with most of the time.
But Biden and Gore are beyond the pale in terms of babbling, opportunistic, posturing and foolish rhetoric and action. Unfortunately Gore has a cult following which will not outlive his professional life.
Big Leo| 4.7.09 @ 11:09AM
The original statistics that create the idiotic 3,000 children a year consider anyone under 25 as a 'youth', i.e., child. Can you say . . . crips 'n bloods? The FBI tells us that 80% of all violent crime is gang related. And the states with the lowest murder rates in the nation, Vermont and Maine, have very easy gun laws and a very high level of gun ownership.
Anthony| 4.7.09 @ 11:17AM
Mark Levin's book, "Liberty and Tyranny" is a must read for conservatives and all objective thinkers, which sadly, brings us back to conservatives. I'm convienced that a devoted leftist reading Levin's book would walk away from the experience completely befuddled, as if reading an incomprehensible language. The concepts expressed therein are FOREIGN.
However, as Mr. Lord points out in his excellent job of chronicling Mr. Levin's concept of "political supression'', the leaders of the left understand Mr. Levin and other movement conservatives all too well, hence the systematic attacks and constant marginalzation of conservatives by leftist pols and media types. The "Fairness Doctrine" is the most extreme manifestation of this jack-booted thugery, however, constant monitering of web sites like TAS and talk radio by Media Matters, Move On and their "drones" are done to stifle robust discussion and talk, lest some comment be taken out to context to remove them from the air. I suspect Rush and Levin are challenged each day to stay within a "safe zone" lest a stray comment led to a fire-storm of protest. Leftist pols like Obama, Clinton, Pelosi & Reid make sure the message gets out each day to maintain the attacks. The media carries the message and attacks their own, albeit conservatives are not recognized as part of the club.
The left is making an all out attempt at societial transformation; we conservatives must break out from the hedgerows and do some open field running of our own in order to engage and win the battle. This is no time for timidity.
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 11:26AM
Anthony...
Precisely.
jaywhite| 4.7.09 @ 12:22PM
Crime in Britain with gun control is higher in some categories. For example, because criminals know citizens are prohibited from owning firearms , they prefer "home invasions" . As for the brain-damaged Joe Biden, people shouldn't criticize the mentally handicapped. What does anyone expect from someone who thought FDR addressed the nation on TV in 1929 in a Presidential address. (TV was available until 1948 and FDR began his first term in 1933).
@Gun Crimes| 4.7.09 @ 12:27PM
Based on 1994 statistics. There aren't a lot of reports out more recently, but here are the 2001 rates of crime per 100,000:
* 4161 - US
* 7736 - Germany
* 6941 - France
* 9927 - England and Wales
Don't need a gun to kill someone or commit crime.
jaywhite| 4.7.09 @ 12:28PM
TV was NOT available until 1948. One of the many facts Biden isn't aware of.
Truth Hurts| 4.7.09 @ 12:46PM
There is no question that extremist right wing talk radio and websites contributed to the murder of three police officers last week.
Repeated claims by "conservatives" that Obama has active plans to confiscate weapons were participants in that lunatic's mania.
There are many conservatives who need to become more responsible members of the "market of ideas." These include Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity -- sans doubt.
The fact is this. The Democratic party has ceded the question of gun control. There are many who still favor a ban on assault rifles, but other than that, the question is finished.
The only time I can remember any confiscation of weapons in my life time, it was carried out by George W Bush's administration in New Orleans following Hurrican Katrina. They may have had their reasons, but let's keep the facts before us: Democrats have never done such a thing.
tonypal| 4.7.09 @ 12:57PM
Truth Hurts:
Since you've stated that "There is no question that extremist right wing talk radio and websites contributed to the murder of three police officers last week," perhaps you can give us some examples of what you've heard on the radio from right wingers to support your statement. Failure to do so will indicate willful ignorance on your part. Surely you're not ignorant, right?
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 1:00PM
Truth...
"There is no question that extremist right wing talk radio and websites contributed to the murder of three police officers last week. "
First, Democrats have been pushing gun control in one form or another for decades. They are long identified with the idea.
Second. People who pull the triggers are the ones responsible. No one else. But if you believe otherwise, than you surely agree Joe Biden should have shown up at Sharpton's event with some NYPD and an arrest warrant. You can't have this both ways.
Whether the subject is guns, sex, or making dinner...the only person responsible is the person who does the deed.
Joe B| 4.7.09 @ 1:18PM
Has anyone noticed the uncanny resemblance of Joe Biden to the syphilitic Tiberius in the BBC TV series "I, Claudius?"
Who Cares| 4.7.09 @ 1:38PM
Those who died at Ruby Ridge would not be suprised of what is taking place in this country. I feel there will be many more Ruby Ridges to come....
brutus| 4.7.09 @ 2:01PM
GunCrimes, your numbers are skewed and misleading. According to esteemed researcher Mr. Lott, your numbers (sourced by liberals, published by liberals) include "children" up to age 25, which means a huge % of your numbers of "children" killed are actually adults by every other accepted definition. Most of these 18-25 year old "children" were gang members killing each other. Typical liberal: skew the numbers to support your propaganda.
Tony in Central PA| 4.7.09 @ 2:12PM
There's the old saying, " You're nobody until somebody loves you ". Nowadays, it might be " You're nobody until we say you're somebody ".
I bring this up because of the earlier statistical chest - thumping by a person on this thread assuring his readers that those nasty, gun - loving conservatives are responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 children per year in the US.
The number 3,000 comes up again with regard to abortion, only its not 3,000 per year. Its more like 3,000 per day in the US. It gets back to the saying, " You're nobody until we say you're somebody ". I suppose the thinking is, " If they aren't people, we're not responsible in any way ". You could be a few seconds away from being born, but you're still a nobody. According to our President's thinking, you could actually be born alive and tossed into a red medical waste dumpster in the hot afternoon sun to suffocate because nobody said you were somebody.
So spare us the selective liberal concern about the sanctity of life that appears when it suddenly becomes politically beneficial.
Truth Hurts| 4.7.09 @ 2:17PM
Mr Lord --
Of course moral and legal responsibility belongs ultimately to the person who committed those shootings.
To pretend that people in media have absolutely no responsibility, that they contribute nothing to these situations, is facile and wilfully blind.
"Conservatives" should ask themselves what is gained and what is lost by elevating the shrillness and hysteria of their accusations.
By all means let us go on debating taxes, foreign policy, and everything else. May these arguments go on forever. Obama is certainly vulnerable to thoughtful critique, and I hope conservatives will never pull their punches.
But comparing him to Hitler, or repeatedly making false claims about what he is doing, is reckless, uncivil, childish, and contrary to the interests of the country.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.7.09 @ 2:54PM
Perhaps the problem is caused by the way Obama is polarizing the nation.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/143lkblo.asp
The growing partisan divide in presidential approval ratings is part of a long-term trend. Going back in time, partisanship was far less evident in the early job approval ratings for both Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. In fact, a majority of Republicans (56%) approved of Carter's job performance in late March 1977, and a majority of Democrats (55%) approved of Nixon's performance at a comparable point in his first term.
Stan Redmond| 4.7.09 @ 3:03PM
Not only "truth hurts" wants to limit the 2nd amendment but also the first amendment. Talking heads have to stop saying what they saying? Well I'll be. I didn't realize Bush was treated so well by the barking moonbats because they obviously didn't debase political discourse. Dubya didn't run through New Orlean grabbing guns. LIBERAL gov't city officials collected them
You're way out of your league here with your childish assertions
Big Leo| 4.7.09 @ 3:08PM
truth hurts,
As George Orwell remarked sixty years ago, the term fascism has been debased to mean something you are vaguely against. Go to any good encyclopedia and study the entry under fascism. Look at the financial policies that Mussolini's fascist government instituted. Compare them to Obama's financial policies. Then, truth will indeed hurt, because Obama's economic policies are very similar to Mussolini's.
And Stan Redmond is absolutely right-- it was the liberal Democratic city government that made the gun grab, not Bush.
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 3:18PM
Truth...
"Beck is the worst offender these days, making repeated illogical and false claims about Obama (that he is a "nazi," that FEMA is setting up concentration camps, etc.). "
I saw Beck on this subject. He spent a serious chunk of air time debunking the FEMA nuttiness...right down to exposing the so-called camps as, believe it or not, AMTRAK repair shops in Indiana...You are wrong about this. One doesn't have to agree...but gee...this was not done. Quite the opposite. He was exposing this lkind of stuff for the nuttiness that it is.
eugene hauber| 4.7.09 @ 3:28PM
where joe biden is concerned, i don't believe that the adjective "asshole" should be considered scatalogical. It fits him perfectly if we are to be honest
Alan Brooks| 4.7.09 @ 3:28PM
Biden is the brainier of the two-- the Cheney, don't underestimate Biden, he'll be president someday.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.09 @ 3:31PM
but Gingrich! how could a genius waste a minute on futurism-witchcraft?
bubble bubble, toil and trouble; the future is about to speak
Terry| 4.7.09 @ 3:47PM
Predominantly, the case for gun control is made by city dwellers, of which I am one. Gun violence dominates cities to a much greater degree than non urban areas. The underlying cause is the presence of gangs and the violence they engender.
Gun control advocates remind me of something my father used to say about small locks, "they're for honest people, they wouldn't stop someone that wants to get in." Gun control stops law abiding persons from buying and owning guns. Criminals do not buy guns in gun stores, they do not apply for permits and they have no compunction for following laws about the types or ability to carry concealed weapons. Only those that are vulnerable do that. Of course, my experience is that liberals are usually city dwellers and when confronted with real statistics about guns and gun violence, ignore real life.
Michele San Pietro| 4.7.09 @ 4:06PM
To typical stupid liberals like Biden (who in 1988 was expelled from the presidential race because he copied a speech out of whole cloth: how come nobody remembered it?), Bush and Gingrich are also guilty for the Vesuvius earthquake of 79 A.C. We just shouldn't care about such nonsense. There are much more useful things to talk about.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.09 @ 4:50PM
yes. but:
you can plagiarize a speech and be a professor, and you can be a fool and be a tenured professor; in fact it helps.
Biden has a great future...
Alan Brooks| 4.7.09 @ 5:26PM
Biden's wife might even end up being Secretary Of State. there is no limit to how far up you can go in America.
Anthony| 4.7.09 @ 6:04PM
To Truth Hurts, The only political comparison to Hitler was done routinely by the left to George W. Bush, or have you forgotten?
"Liberals" should ask themselves what is gained and what is lost by elevating the shrillness and hysteria of their accusations. See Bush v. Gore 2000 and Anthropogenic Global Warming for proof , Truth Hurts.
This is not an exercise leftists should engage in, it only makes real what you refuse to acknowledge.
Jeff| 4.7.09 @ 6:19PM
What a totally bumbling fool he is. Honestly, this country is so deep in trouble with these leaders.
Truth Hurts| 4.7.09 @ 7:41PM
Anthony --
I don't recall news anchors or columnists in major publications ever comparing Bush to Hitler.
Maybe they did and I missed it. As far as I can recall, it was just idiots on the left-wing fringes.
Recently, there's a tenor of intemperate and completely irresponsible accusations and claims coming from Fox News, websites like this one, and talk radio that is listened to by millions of people.
That said, if I ever heard a lefty make that comparison of Bush I'd say the same thing. Calling any elected American president a "nazi" is completely out of line; it's stupid, and I reject it, no matter who is doing it.
But is that really your argument?
Glenn Beck is right to project enormous images of Nazi Stormtroopers on screen and say "that's where we're headed" because someone compared Bush to Hitler? How does that make any sense?
I think you better go back to the drawing board and figure out a legitimate, cogent, logical argument to make against Obama's policies. Abandon and descry all this shrill, extreme, paranoid craziness.
Truth Hurts| 4.7.09 @ 7:46PM
Mr Lord
Beck spent a WEEK claiming he was "unable to debunk rumors" about these so-called concentration camps. Then, after splashing around in the muck for a while, he announced he had debunked it.
But that would be like me saying I am unable to debunk rumors that Dick Cheny is a child-molestor.
(As you are probably aware, logic never requires someone to prove a negative; Beck's whole campaign was logically invalid.)
But to watch as Beck narrowed his repulsive, porcine eyes at the camera and all but claim Obama is a nazi was the lowest, most debased thing I've ever seen on television.
And all that blubbering and bathos and whimpering? What a contemptible, snivelling bug.
If you think that's the way the "party of ideas" is going to make its come-back (but David Frum -- he should be disowned!), you're crazier than Beck.
Big Leo| 4.7.09 @ 7:58PM
truth hurts says, ""Beck is the worst offender these days, making repeated illogical and false claims about Obama (that he is a "nazi," that FEMA is setting up concentration camps, etc.). " In fact, the whole FEMA accusation isn't true. Beck spent some time debunking it. What you seem to object to is that he took some time investigating it, so he was sure of his facts.
And you also admit that he didn't actually accuse Obama of being a Nazi, as you say "to watch as Beck narrowed his repulsive, porcine eyes at the camera and all but claim Obama is a nazi" It does clearly reveal that you have a visceral hatred of Beck, and also reveals that nothing you originally said about him is not true.
Truth hurts, doesn't it?
Dustoff| 4.7.09 @ 8:00PM
Didin't Biden's daughter just get caught up in some drug problem... Drugs & guns= crime.
Biden should shut up.
Dustoff| 4.7.09 @ 8:04PM
Truth Hurts
I don't recall news anchors or columnists in major publications ever comparing Bush to Hitler.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No, but some of us remember NYT getting a prize for talking about how good Stalin was, even though he was killing thousands at the time and they knew it.
Or say the talk show host on (AA) who made a joke (with sound) of shooting Bush. Which in turn others went with the same idea.
Man your memory is darn short!
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 8:15PM
Truth...
Beck made it crystal clear he is in the debunking business...And no debunking evidence found is no evidence found. There are nuts out there. They must be refuted with facts, not assertions. He went out and found the facts and aired them. At length. If I thought he believed FEMA was running concentration camps ...hello?...I wouldn't be watching a second longer. Period. We are about principles here. Not nutty nonsense. And yes, MoveOn compared Bush to Hitler. I saw their lovely "commercial."
Big Leo| 4.7.09 @ 8:26PM
Whenever any liberal ass compared Bush to Hitler, I wanted to shake them. My family fled first Communism in 1918, then Hitler in 1936. And they did it all the time. Like the Pope, my father was in Hitler Youth-- like you had a choice! They closed down the Boy Scouts and enrolled everyone in Hitler Youth. Of course, you could go in and explain you didn't want to join-- and let me know how that works out for you. After eight years of this nonsense do we need to listen to someone complain about vigorous opposition to Obama, especially when they don't tell the truth about what a major commentator actually said?
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 8:34PM
Truth..
From a news report at the time:
"Sen. Dick Durbin went to the Senate floor late Tuesday to offer his apologies to anyone who may have been offended by his comparison of treatment of detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Nazis, Soviet gulags and Cambodia’s Pol Pot."
So if the number 2 Dem in the US Senate says our troops at Guantanamo are Nazis, who was the head Nazi?
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Truth Hurts| 4.7.09 @ 8:43PM
Mr Lord --
Ironic that you bring up Durbin's remark during the week that the Red Cross's latest report comes out.
Their study details unbelievable mistreatment of prisoners by CIA agents and medical personnel who are banned by treaty and our own laws from participating in such activities.
Now that we live in a country that tortures people, perhaps we should consider exactly when and how it is appropriate to use comparisons to fascist regimes -- rather than simply banning the practice as uncivilized.
Just the fact that Sen. Durbin's remarks were out of line -- but not all that out of line -- is disgusting.
pete the mediocre| 4.7.09 @ 8:51PM
Here are the facts on gun deaths, particularly as they relate to "children."
http://www.tincher.to/deaths.htm
In 1999 there were 1609 deaths of 18-19 year old adults who were counted as children to skew the numbers. Also 55% of gun deaths are suicides.
Statistics in the hands of liberals are never what they seem.
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 9:08PM
Truth...
Have to see the report first before I comment. Haven't heard of it. Lesson One: Never comment on something you haven't at least read up on or egg-on-face will be a recurring disease.
Truth Hurts| 4.7.09 @ 9:33PM
Mr Lord,
Your policy is certainly sensible.
An article on the report went up on the New York Review of Books website last night. If you're not allergic to any publication with the words "New York" in the title, I'd highly recommend it.
But I should be clearer: I don't approve of anyone calling an American president a "nazi," if only because it trivializes the actual Nazis this country defeated in a God-awful war.
RborisT| 4.7.09 @ 10:22PM
I notice that Truth Hurts doesn't answer uncomfortable questions and frequently changes the subject of his unending attack. In my opinion, he is, to borrow a Rushism, a "seminar commenter". Breitbart has a very good article on the left-wing practice of invading comment sections to cause havoc. In a March 30 opinion piece at the Washington Times, (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/30/rules-for-conservative-radicals/) he writes in part:
”A digital war has broken out, and the conservative movement is losing.
Read the comment sections of right-leaning blogs, news sites and social forums, and the evidence is there in ugly abundance. Internet hooligans are spewing their talking points to thwart the dissent of the newly-out-of-power…
Political leftists play for keeps. They are willing to lie, perform deceptive acts in a coordinated fashion and do so in a wicked way - all in the pursuit of victory. Moral relativism is alive and well in the land of Hope and Change and its Web-savvy youth brigade expresses its "idealism" in a most cynical fashion...
The ends justify the means for them - now more than ever.
Much of Mr. Obama's vaunted online strategy involved utilizing "Internet trolls" to invade enemy lines under false names and trying to derail discussion. …”
Do read the whole thing. I see it all the time. We all need to stop allowing these apparatchiks to hijack and crash these comment threads.
Anthony| 4.7.09 @ 10:29PM
Truth,
I am not aware of this particular Beck imbrolio that you refer to. However, if I may extrapolate, having watched some of Beck, if Beck did say that this is where we are headed under Obama, I believe he said it in the context of Obama's utter disregard for the Constitution and the "nationalizing" of the private sector. Add to this Obama's civilian corps that he wants funded on "par with the military", to do what exactly? He doesn't say. Add to this his desire for some application of the "Fairness Doctrine" and federal funding of the newspaper industry. Add to this the W.H. taking over control of the census, and things begin to look mighty uncomfortable. P.S. I believe Keith Olberman might have made Bush/Hitler comparisons. Finally, please cool it with the torture hand wringing. Congress has always had control to define what techniques the military could employ but refused to do so because it wanted the issue without the consequence their actions might have caused to happen. If there is torture in America, it's coming from the Dem hacks in congress.
Jeffrey Lord| 4.7.09 @ 10:37PM
Truth...
"If you're not allergic to any publication with the words "New York" in the title, I'd highly recommend it."
Gee...Since my parents are from New York, ditto most of my extended family, have been published in the Wall Street (New York) Journal and love the gossip in the New York Post...nooooooo problem. Is there another paper there? I forget. The Daily Planet?
Big Leo| 4.7.09 @ 10:48PM
There's another paper in New York besides the Post and the Daily News. Aha! I remember! The Jewish Daily Forward-- good paper.
I've been on European threads where claims of mass murder at Guantanamo were made. It's easy to claim torture, but hard to define it and harder still to prove it.
Frankly, if I thought pouring water down some mass killer's nose would produce information that would save innocent lives, I'd still be upset if it were done. Just not real upset.
Nick| 4.7.09 @ 11:04PM
I too would like to pile on and point out another falsehood stated by the person with the ironic moniker "Truth Hurts".
It wasn't President Bush's administration that confiscated the people's weapons after Katrina, it was Mayor Ray Nagin (DEMOCRAT) and his Police Superintendent (DEMOCRAT).
lila| 4.7.09 @ 11:07PM
Switzerland has the lowest crime rate of any nation. Every household is issued a gun. There are approx. 26 robberies a year per 100,000 people and less than one murder a year per 100,000 people. It makes it hard for killers and robbers to do their deeds, if they know they will be shot and killed.
As far as torture, I laugh when I hear liberals say they are so offended by it. When most of the liberals I know(including Obama by his own words) think it is perfectly fine to "torture" a baby with abortion. Usually their little legs and arms are pulled off or mangled, but who cares, they are not human, (obama says that whether it's a baby or not is above his pay grade).
This is why I am no longer a liberal, a member of the "moral, tolerant, and compassionate party" What a joke. The party that calls you bigot, racist, etc, if you don't agree with them. No debate,kind of like our fearless leader. What a stinking lie we have been fed by the liberal left wing nut jobs. I am so sick of it.
They hate Bush, guess what, nobody cares what you think of him, dingdongs, he's gone, in case you didn't know. Your boring us. You repeat the same old crap and most of the time, the facts are wrong, because you repeat it from the MSM(Chris Matthews, Olbermann news, brilliant). Barry's there now, but I see why you don't want to talk about the teleprompter boy we have in the WH. We now live in a country with a "leader" that stabs us in the back, parties like a Frat Boy, spends money like a drunken sailor, while telling us to give till it hurts, (he gives 1% to charity and has a cocktail party at least once a week), bows to a Saudi Prince, and doesn't even know how many states there are.
It is time to cut the P.C. crap. The whole time Bush was in office, these weanies went after him like rabid dogs, well, Bush could take it, your guy can't, he's weak. It gets under his skin and under the liberals, they can't take it. Theyll throw a pie at you if you try to give another opinion. Ouch..Obama is either very naive, dumb, or just doesn't give a crap about us or our country. I talk to more and more people that voted for this goof, and now can't believe what they have done. I really hoped he would do the right thing by us. He has turned into a complete nightmare and he has just started. Axelrod, Gibbs, and Timmy are like the Keystone cops. Let us remember, all of America did not vote for this classless act. Many millions voted against him or did not vote at all because they couldn't stand either one. He won by 6%, wow. What a landslide. The "educated" has spoken. But he is entertaining.
Osamas Pajamas | 4.8.09 @ 12:17AM
About "American guns going to Mexico" ---- as usual the Democrats are lying ---- the narcotrafficos get about 10% of their weaponry from USA sources, and the rest from elsewhere. Inasmuch as they are a multibillion dollar industry, the druglords will have no problem whatever in replacing their American gun sources, if need be. The Democrats intend to disarm privately-employed American taxpayers, ostensibly to protect Mexicans from Mexicans. The routine falsification of reality is not exclusively a Democratic pathology, but it is unique to that political culture due to the depth of its infection of that specific population.
Alkali Ike| 4.8.09 @ 12:51AM
I live on the border and am personally aware of how narco crime is conducted-- generally by machine gun, which weapon is not available in the US. The chief of the Sonoran police, two detectives, and a waitress were killed in my favorite restaurant less than an hour from here-- by machine gun. The 90% figure for guns from the US has its earliest appearance in a leftist think tank article which also claimed that there are three gun shops on every mile of the border selling machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, and hand grenades. I know the Arizona and New Mexican and Californian borders intimately, every mile. Oddly enough, I've only found about a dozen gun shops in that whole thousand miles within even ten miles of the border. I guess that Texan border must be damn crowded.
Angel| 4.8.09 @ 2:40AM
Do liberals even know when they're lying: Or do they just lie constantly? They are such slimeballs.
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Jim Treacher | 4.8.09 @ 6:42AM
"Anyone who does not recogonise that Gun Crimes in the United States as a serious problem is not thinking. America is a Crime ridden country, has been for many years, and is one of the most dangerious place on earth."
Whatever you do, then, don't come live here.
Nick| 4.8.09 @ 9:45AM
Lila,
Sing it sister! Great post.
wbheff| 4.8.09 @ 1:51PM
5085 people killed in "gun crimes" in 2002.
41059 people traffic fatalities in the United States in 2007.
This means, of course, that we must ban the automobile.
Angel| 4.8.09 @ 5:39PM
wbheff--just Conservatives' autos.
Deadvoter | 4.9.09 @ 1:37AM
As a Chicagoland Native I can tell you that it is against the law to own a firearm in the City of Chicago, yet the more people are killed in Chicago than our Soldiers in Iraq - Guns are against the law yet people are being shot.
Mayor Daley wants more gun laws, how do you make them even more illegal here than they already are?
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