Update of this post.
I've only started to review news stories on this, but I've already noticed this fucking idiot going off half-cocked and blaming the Tea Party movement without any evidence whatsoever of a Tea Party link; in a more reasoned discussion, we have this story that seeks to differentiate between the various types of domestic political terrorism in the US; this story fails a bit when the writer claims that there is no liberal equivalent to conservative talk radio (Air America, anyone?) but otherwise offers good analysis. I'll get to some other news links on this story a bit later, I have to run some errands this morning after I leave work.
Update: most of the straight-news stories are sticking to the facts at this point and not engaging in speculation. The blogs are less restrained, with Daily Kos blaming Fox News for the shootings; this blog at AlterNet asks "I wonder what network he watched." A more humorous angle is taken by this blog, which uses Lindsay Lohan's troubles to try to draw attention to the I-580 shootings, hinting that Lohan's troubles are acting as a distraction to reporting more serious stories.
I'm fascinated by the role that the shooter's mother has played in this. According to the news stories, the guns that Williams used in the shootout belonged to his mother, and that she purchased them with the intent to have them ready for a revolution. Perhaps, then, the apple didn't fall that far from the tree, and his anti-government/anti-leftist stance was under his mother's influence. She probably needs to stop talking and consult a lawyer herself at this point.
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13 comments:
While II agree that your first example was the musing of an idiot, he was a guest blogger on a newspaper's website. It would be a big stretch to call this an MSM news story, which is what you seemed to be saying you were going to monitor.
@wally: according to the bio provided, the idiot is a pundit for CNN, and so perhaps can be said to fall into the purview of MSM. It will be interesting to see how much of an attempt will be made to blame this on the Tea Party; presumably the Journolist Cabal is already coordinating their attack via their super-secret back channels.
Well, in that case, pundits such as George Will, Cal Thomas, Charles Krauthammer, Liz Cheney and Kathleen Parker should all fall under your purview too. They all share an equal stage in my local MSM paper with liberals.
@wally: have to disagree. Just as blacks can't be racist because they lack power in white society (that's Rev. Jackson's and Rev. Sharpton's conclusion), conservative pundits can't be MSM because they lack power in a liberal-dominated field. To prove my point, please name one executive editor of a major US newspaper who is conservative by his own admission. Or one anchor on a major network who is conservative.
A pundit's only power is to be published. If a pundit is being published in newspaper X, how does the political orientation of the executive editor of newspaper X affect that pundit's power?
It's been my experience in proximity to the news business that executive editors, regardless of their personal orientation, bend over backwards to give equal space to conservative pundits. The ones I named all have healthy readership. How exactly are they being disempowered?
@wally: pundits only write articles. Editors make the decisions on whether the articles find their way to the news pages, and under what form. And, if you read my JournoList post, the various editors and newsmen decide behind the scenes what gets covered and what doesn't, and conservative pundits aren't invited to those discussions. Tell me again, then, just who has the power?
I think we may be having a defining-our-terms disconnect. A pundit is a columnist, not a reporter. You can bet an editor never told George Will what to cover--he'd have his head on a platter. And once a paper contracts to syndicate Will's column, if an editor bumps it from the op-ed page, you can bet he'll have some 'splainin to do. The publisher will want to know why they're paying Will good money for nothing. Now, editors certainly exercise great control over what their reporters cover; that would be a legitimate area to look at as far as liberal bias is concerned.
@wally: And columnists such as Will or Krauthammer, as outside contractors, have no say in editorial decisions for a newspaper, thus no power other than the inherent power of their columns. On television, such as the Sunday shows you cover, fair play is to have 3-4 left/liberal columnists (plus the host, another liberal) and one conservative columnist.
Sorry, Bob, that's just not true. I think this gets to a basic fallacy of the right: that anyone who's not an out-and-out conservative must therefore be a liberal. There are still people in the middle, believe it or not.
George Will is a regular on ABC's Sunday morning show. There's often another conservative guest, such as Liz Cheney or that bald-headed guy whose name escapes me, or one of the guys from the Wall Street Journal, or even Karl Rove or Roger Ailes. That's two out of four. And if you can quote me one thing that Jake Tapper, the host, has said that reveals him as a liberal, I'll publicly recant and apologize on your blog.
"Don't believe without evidence." Does that ring a bell?
@wally: Actually, Walt, it's a basic fallacy of MSM journalists to believe themselves to be centrists, which skews their perspective. This is the reason that they routinely described figures like the late Sen. Jesse Helms as "arch-conservatives" but would never describe the late Sen. Edward Kennedy as an "arch-liberal."
I didn't mention Tapper by name, so requiring me to furnish quotes "proving" that he's liberal I won't comply with. I'll simply posit that he's probably a liberal because most journalists are: percentages. I'm engaging in ideological profiling, Walt. Want to bet against me? How will you prove the negative? You are aware, I hope, that many MSM personalities refuse to reveal their political affiliations or voting patterns because it reinforces the stereotype of the journalist as liberal and biased?
Tapper's predecessor at This Week, George Stephenopolous, was a Clinton hack before coming to ABC. Tim Russert worked for Democrat senator Moynihan and later for Democrat Gov. Mario Cuomo.
I'll never go broke betting that MSM journalists aren't liberal, Walt. Even President Obama at one of the White House Correspondents' Dinners, speaking to the MSM journalists gathered there, told them "you all voted for me." It was part of a comedy speech, but revealed a basic truth. Their bootlicking coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, combined with the JournoList stuff which you haven't even acknowledged, tells the tale.
Your profiling goes against your stated philosophy, "don't believe without evidence." Why not listen to what they actually say, and form your opinions of them based on that?
Your words: "(plus the host, another liberal)." I had been discussing ABC's show, which is why I brought up Jake Tapper, the host. Sorry you missed the connection.
My point stands: the composition of these shows does not conform to your preconceptions.
@walt: I do believe with evidence. Numerous studies have been done on ideological identification and party affiliation by journalists, and the studies all show that MSM journalists are overwhelmingly left/liberal ideologically and Democrats politically. The numbers are in the 90% range. These results have been so embarrassing to the MSM in the past that many of them refuse to participate in similar studies. So if I state that the MSM is liberal, it is with a certainty that 9 out of 10 reporters/editors/etc. will be.
As for letting them speak for themselves, by all means let us do do: NPR producer Sarah Spitz would laugh maniacally if she saw Rush Limbaugh having a heart attack; Bloomberg's Ryan Donmoyer compares Tea Party activists to Hitler's Brownshirts; UK Guardian columnist Daniel Davies thinks Fox News needs to be "controlled" with tough libel laws, and some of his colleagues think that the government should yank Fox off the air.
So there you go. Their own words.
Okay, Robert. Last time. You brought up pundits. You brought up Sunday morning talk shows. I'm talking about pundits and Sunday morning talk shows. I haven't denied that the orientation of most MSM people is liberal. My point was that Sunday morning talk shows are by and large fair and balanced. Nothing you have said refutes that in the slightest. I'm done.
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