The Spectacle Blog
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia
During her Friday night speech at the Smart Girl Summit, Dana Loesch
raged against the way the mainstream media reported the massacre at
a Colorado movie theater. “They’re creating new victims,” Loesch
told women gathered for the conference at the Westin Hotel
here.
Editor of Breitbart.com’s Big Journalism site, Loesce singled out Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, who mistakenly named a memeber of the Tea Party movement as a suspect in the shootings in Aurora that killed 12 people at a showing of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. After police named James Holmes as the accused gunman, Ross appeared with Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America:
Stephanolpoulos: I’m going to go to Brian Ross. You’ve been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.
Ross: There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.
Stephanolpoulos: Okay, we’ll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.
Colorado Tea Party activist Jim Holmes is a 52-year-old former law enforcement officer, not the 24-year-old grad school dropout James Holmes, a native of San Diego who was arrested for the Friday shootings that killed a dozen people and wounded 70 more.
Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller interviewed Jim Holmes, who blasted Ross’s haphazard reporting: “What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement? … I do understand what making a mistake means… But is it really worth the person’s reputation, the potential ruining of the person’s reputation?” Holmes, who said he was inundated by phone calls after Ross’s mistake, said ABC News never contacted him.
ABC’s carelessness has been widely excoriated online, including by such liberal outlets as Mother Jones, Gawker and Wonkette. Conservatives are outraged, with some bloggers demanding that Ross and/or Stephanopoulos be fired, and at least one blog calling for a boycott of ABC and its parent company Disney.
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Oldefarte| 7.22.12 @ 7:26PM
'.....“Ultimately,” Huckabee concluded, “We don't have a crime problem or a gun problem – or even a violence problem. What wehave is a sin problem. And since we ordered God out of our schools and communities, the military and public conversations, you know, we really shouldn't act so surprised when all hell breaks loose.”....'
threeleafclover| 7.22.12 @ 10:04PM
Back in May 0f 2010 Nashville Tennessee suffered a torrential, destructive flood with at least 28 dead. Obama played golf and did not seem to notice.Or, he did and concluded hillbillies don't vote Democrat.
Today, Sunday, Air Force One has touched down in (vote) target-rich Colorado where he can mourn with them over the 12 dead, hold a baby or two and get back on Air Force One and not miss his tee-time or next fund-raising tomorrow.
What happened in Aurora was a natural disaster the same as a storm. The storm in this case, occurred in James Holmes' brain and manifested itself externally in an inexplicable way.
What is it, never let a "good" crisis go to waste? Tennessee was not a good crisis, obviously. It got no headlines, little TV coverage. It was so long ago -who remembers 2010.
Obama is an unnatural disaster..Don't listen to what he says.. Watch what he does. The man has no humanity.
threeleafclover| 7.22.12 @ 10:44PM
Biggest sin is idiots like Mike Huckabee attributing everything to Sin. Churches have not been shut down. Boy Scouts of America still operates, molding good citizens. Good families still produce children who grow into good citizens.
Schools hardly educate children. Don't expect spiritual guidance. As for public conversation, if the timid value political correctness more than free speech, it has little to do with anything other than their own milquetoast cowardice.
Huckabee paints with a broad brush. My family, my husband, my two sons, both active in Boy Scouts, three grandsons, two Eagle Scouts and one with that goal, have engaged in laying flags at Golden Gate Cemetery for the past 17 years. My son and volunteers repaired the sign posts at the GG cemetery. Each July 5, my older grandsons clear the beach of spent fireworks. They conduct car washes. The proceeds go to the Ladies Auxiliary in their little town to prepare toiletry CARE packages for our military.
I am sure there are plenty of commenters at this site who could list at least as many community services as I have.
The day James Holmes carried out his insane plot my 25 year old and 18 year old grandsons were mowing my lawn and repairing my bird feeding station. Two young men voluntarily showing up to do chores for their grandmother.
So, speak for yourself, Blowhard Huckabee. You don't pray away a demented mind - which is what
propelled James Holmes in his path of mayhem.
Occam's Tool| 7.22.12 @ 11:04PM
Mr. Holmes, the retired cop, should have a Libel lawsuit, eh? I turn this over to JC Eaton. If he does, he should take ABC for MILLIONS.
Mick Lee| 7.23.12 @ 10:15AM
Oh, come on. We all know what was going on. Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos wanted to connect the gunman with politics they despise. We also know that, if the shooter turned out to be some low level flunky in the Democrat Party or a sometimes writer for the Daily Kos, we'd never hear about it.
Just wait for the "Well, yeah, it wasn't true. But it does illustrate a larger truth" phase.