M2RB: Thousand Foot Krutch
Then, I asked have you ever felt abandoned?
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
Just like all the walls are closing in...
And, you were left inside?
Have you ever felt like your days were numbered?
Stuck under a tree in thunder?
Seems to be no way out!
But, there is One when in doubt.
Why?
So much more to life than this...
"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."
- Brian Ross, "Investigative Correspondent" for ABC News, 20 July 2012
By John Kass
How long does it take for a major American television news
network to politicize mass murder and blame conservatives for the blood
of innocents?
Not long.
It happened on ABC's "Good Morning
America" on Friday morning, as the country woke to the news of the mass
murder during the midnight showing of the new Batman movie: A heavily
armed man named James Eagan Holmes allegedly killed 12 and injured 58
others in a suburban theater outside Denver.
ABC's George Stephanopoulos, once a top aide to former
President Bill Clinton, and ABC reporter Brian Ross teamed up to quickly
place the horror at the feet of American conservatives.
Stephanopoulos: 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.
Stephanopoulos: OK, we'll keep looking at that.
Brian Ross, thanks very much.
And
that's all it took, a mention, a name, a possible connection about a
Jim Holmes joining the tea party movement that is reviled by
establishment Democrats and (though not often reported) establishment
Republicans. The connection was made.
It was artfully done.
But there was one thing wrong with the ABC report.
It was the wrong Holmes.
The
Holmes ABC referred to was a middle-aged man. The one arrested with the
guns and the gas bombs and the mask and the booby-trapped apartment is
James Eagan Holmes, a 24-year-old graduate student who was in the
process of dropping out of school.
After an onslaught by bloggers over the Internet on Friday, ABC news issued a correction.
"An
earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a
Colorado tea party organization might be the suspect, but that report
was incorrect," said ABC News in a statement. "ABC News and Brian Ross
apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before
it was properly vetted."
We all make mistakes. But this one
smacks of political bias. And when you add political bias to the rush of
breaking news, as seems to have happened here, things get stinky.
An
earlier skin-back by ABC suggested the network was hoping to blame
social media. "Several other local residents with similar names were
also contacted via social media by members of the public who mistook
them for the suspect," an earlier ABC statement said.
Really? So ABC blames Facebook and Twitter? What would David Brinkley do?
What happened Friday fits into a theme being pushed of late by the political left and supporters of President Barack Obama:
That
conservative groups opposed to the ever-increasing power of federal
government are angry, that such anger is irrational, that conservative
talk radio feeds the anger and therefore, criticism of Obama is
dangerous. If only conservatives had the decency to calm down before a
monumental presidential election in November, things would be so much
nicer.
Of course, that's all political horse poop. You can almost
see the magic thumbs of David Axelrod grabbing a handful to shape the
action figures who'll star in those "angry voter" stories to come.
In
2008, there was plenty of anger on the Democratic side, and much
despair among conservatives, who'd been betrayed by the big-government
excesses of the corporatist GOP establishment, which has since tried to
co-opt the tea party movement. Back then, American journalism generally
portrayed voter anger as the legitimate expression of an electorate
exhausted by endless war and a terrible economy.
Now that Obama
seeks re-election, as the wars continue and the jobless rates get much
worse, and as the economy flops listlessly in the mud, the menu has
changed. Such anger is no longer legitimate. It's bothersome and noisy,
might just be murderous. How convenient.
President Clinton pushed
this theme after the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995. In a bid
to silence his critics, while oozing sincerity, Clinton argued that
conservative talk radio was to blame for the angry mood.
Two years
later, the late and great essayist Christopher Hitchens was taking part
in one of those year-in-review panel discussions. Though Hitchens was a
man of the radical left, he was one of my favorites because he refused
to play the partisan bobo for anyone. The panel discussion touched on
Princess Diana, and how then-Prime Minister Tony Blair politicized her
death.
"George
Stephanopoulos spends weekends in my apartment building because he comes down
for 'The Week Without David Brinkley' or whatever that TV show is now
called," Hitchens had said. "We had a drink around the time of the
Diana business, and he said, 'Hey, Tony Blair's doing brilliantly isn't he?
This is his Oklahoma City.' Those guys think about things that way."
Yes. those guys do think about things
that way. Not about evil as a real presence, but as something symbolic,
evil in the abstract, as a device to be used to political advantage.
It's still only July, a lifetime until November.
jskass@tribune.com Twitter @John_Kass
A Stroll Down Memory Lane - Related Reading:
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Broad Brushes Paint Wide Swaths
When In Doubt - Thousand Foot Krutch
We sat upon your bed.
We sat upon your bed.
You said the things you said
And I could not believe that you seem so naive.
We exchanged our poetry.
You seem to think a lot like me.
I'll guess I just assumes that we could talk about most anything.
Then, I asked have you ever felt abandoned?
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
And I could not believe that you seem so naive.
We exchanged our poetry.
You seem to think a lot like me.
I'll guess I just assumes that we could talk about most anything.
Then, I asked have you ever felt abandoned?
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
Just like all the walls are closing in...
And, you were left inside?
Have you ever felt like your days were numbered?
Stuck under a tree in thunder?
Seems to be no way out!
But, there is One when in doubt.
Ready for another day.
Slowly, watched ya waste away,
Havin' fun, bein' cool
Like we did in high school,
Elementary romance feelin' nervous at the dance.
Stuck under a tree in thunder?
Seems to be no way out!
But, there is One when in doubt.
Ready for another day.
Slowly, watched ya waste away,
Havin' fun, bein' cool
Like we did in high school,
Elementary romance feelin' nervous at the dance.
Crack a smile, hold it down,
Whatever the circumstance.
Sex, drugs, hadda be cool.
All the things we learned in school.
Typical teenage machines.
Anyone, tell me what this means?
I could learn, I could try,
Never really had an alibi.
Wish I did, that's no lie.
Everybody's asking...
Why?
When you feel like you can't fly,
You gotta know I got the answer for ya, baby.
Drives ya crazy, it's not over.
There's so much more to life than this.
You gotta know I got the answer for ya, baby.
Drives ya crazy, it's not over.
There's so much more to life than this.
Why?
When you feel like you can't fly,
You gotta know I got the answer for ya, baby.
Drives ya crazy, it's not over.
There's so much more to life than this.
Things seem so hallucinary.
In the corners of my mind they scare me.
You gotta know I got the answer for ya, baby.
Drives ya crazy, it's not over.
There's so much more to life than this.
Things seem so hallucinary.
In the corners of my mind they scare me.
I know ya never meant to desert me.
Just like ya never really meant to hurt me.
Just like ya never really meant to hurt me.
Then, I asked have you ever felt abandoned?
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
Just like all the walls are closing in...
And, you were left inside?
Have you ever felt like your days were numbered?
Stuck under a tree in thunder?
Seems to be no way out!
But, there is One when in doubt.
Why?
So much more to life than this...
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