The media slips an awful lot past the public with the word “context.” They frequently claim they don’t carry stories like this because the “context” doesn’t support making it worthy of mention. . . .
1. We don’t have to patrol the left for violence because the left is entirely non-violent and law-abiding. This assumption is of course false on its face and absurd even in postulation.
2. We don’t have to patrol the left for violence because we have such moral certitude about the goodness of our ends that we are justified in using otherwise-immoral means, such as violence, to attain them.
Go read the whole thing, because Ace is awesome when he’s really pissed off. And it pisses me off, too.
Ten years ago, I did a news article for the Washington Times examining the dearth of coverage about the murder of Jesse Dirkhising, an Arkansas teenager who was raped and suffocated by two men. One of the two killers had just been convicted, and another was still on trial. Why had the murder of Matthew Shepard merited wall-to-wall coverage while the death of Dirkhising — an equally horrendous and senseless crime — got no national coverage at all? I called up the networks to ask, and one response was particularly memorable:
“We’ve been watching the trial and will continue to monitor it,” ABC News spokesman Todd Polkes said Wednesday. “Currently, we have no plans to report it in our national newscasts. It appears to be a local crime story that does not raise the kind of issues that would warrant our coverage.”
What kind of issues do “warrant coverage”? And why are some issues so transparently more equal than others? Who decides these things?
No one ever satisfactorily answered those questions, and here again we see how media bias involves preconceived ideas of what issues “warrant coverage.”
Look, just from the standpoint of sensationalistic “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” newsworthiness, isn’t “Brutish Man Attacks Pretty Girl” kind of a catchy story? You don’t have to politicize the story in order to tell the story, yet reporters seem so afraid of what the story’s political impact might be that they refuse to tell it.
AFL-CIO rent-a-mobsters, including members of the Communications Workers of America, descended on the D.C. offices of FreedomWorks today for a protest. Tabitha Hale had a video camera going when she got shoved by a CWA goon:
UPDATE III: Duane Lester: “Perhaps in lieu of compensation, Mr. Union Thug will just have to go through some counseling at the new civility institute in Arizona.”
UPDATE IV: Dan Riehl: “So much for civility, it appears it’s given way to assault and battery.”
Bryan Preston points out the obvious: “One of the absolute dumbest things anyone can do is take a swing at another person when that other person has a video camera on and recording. The momentary swing become permanent evidence of assault.”
CWA is obviously recruiting its goons from the shallow end of the IQ pool these days. I mean, hitting a girl? “There was a time when even union thugs would have left a young lady alone,” Da Tech Guy says.
Professor Glenn Reynolds: “[T]ake a look at the video and you’ll see the angry, yet impotent face of today’s labor movement.”
And so an obvious Narrative question presents itself: She must have been asking for this somehow, but … how? Perhaps she was invading this fine gentleman’s “personal space?” Or perhaps she somehow “manufactured” the confrontation to precipitate a little thuggery, thereby painting poor liberals in a bad light.
Willis has denied that the first of those Tweets had anything to do with this Freedomworks incident, and the second was his reaction to Wurtzel’s accusation that Willis was saying this was a “manufactured” incident.
OK, fine: If Willis says this was merely coincidental, I’m prepared to accept his word for it. Total coincidence — nothing whatsoever to do with the chatter that was all over Twitter. Willis just happened to have this sudden sense of foreboding about “manufactured conservative confrontations.”
UPDATE VIII: Let’s engage in a little hypothetical scenario, shall we? Suppose that a liberal activist had been assaulted on camera at a Tea Party event — on the streets of D.C., three blocks from the Capitol, in broad daylight. Do you suppose sucn an incident would have been mentioned by a mainstream news organization or two?
I ask this, because as of 8:25 p.m. ET, the only Google News results for the Tabitha-gets-thugged incident are from conservative outfits, including Powerline and the Daily Caller.
The Journolisters never report any story that portrays the Left in a bad light. But let a psychotic left-wing Zeitgeist cultist commit a mass murder, and watch the Journolisters rush to blame that on the Right. And even after the leftist leanings of the gunman are revealed, the Journolisters will refuse to acknowledge their error, nor will they admit that the error was caused by their habit of recycling Democrat propaganda and calling it “news.”
It is a key tenet of Democrat propaganda that the Right (and only the Right) is crammed full of hate-filled kooks who can be incited to violence by the “vitriolic” rhetoric of their spokesmen. In order to foster that perception, however, the Journolisters must be careful never to call attention to acts of violence (or expressions of hate) emanating from the Left.
So it is that these supposed arbiters of objectivity present a twisted picture of the world as distorted as the reflection in a funhouse mirror.
UPDATE IX: Little Miss Attila: “This is why we should try to have a second camera, so we can record it when the person with the first camara gets attacked.”
UPDATE X: Dave explains that this is the “New New Tone” — as opposed to the Old “New Tone,” which was what liberals demanded while they were falsely accusing the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh of inspiring mass murder. Then there was the Slightly Newer New Tone, which was when liberals accused conservatives of being “defensive” because conservatives kept pointing out that false accusations of inspiring mass murder were, in fact, false.
Wednesday’s trip to Capitol Hill was amazing. I spent most of the afternoon with Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, her staff, supporters and family, including a trip to the basement of the Capitol for her ceremonial swearing-in photo with Speaker John Boehner.
The lady in the middle holding the Bible is Congresswoman Buerkle’s 89-year-old mother.
I’ll be back to update with more from yesterday’s event-filled trip — including the story of how one of my Tweets started a rumor about Tabitha Hale getting married. (Don’t worry guys, she’s still available. But you’d better move fast. Once I start this matchmaking thing, sometimes girls will just marry any old random stranger so I’ll stop pestering them.)
When Pete Da Tech Guy and I visited Buerkle’s 25th New York district in mid-October, we crashed at the Lonely Conservative’s house. Back with more updates in a few minutes.
Buerkle, a former nurse and lawyer for the state attorney general’s office, described her swearing-in as “a tremendous honor.”
“At the same time you’re humbled by the responsibility of the office and representing the district, and not wanting to let down the people who are back home in our district,” she said.
Buerkle’s family — including two brothers, two of her six children and her 89-year-old mother — came to Washington for the swearing-in ceremony. Buerkle said her family’s presence was what she most looked forward to during her first day as a congresswoman. “I’m very proud, and her father would have been too. She’s so much like him,” said Buerkle’s mother, Sadie Colella of Auburn.
Buerkle’s younger brother, Tom Colella, who worked as a senior adviser for her campaign, said watching the ceremony was “truly historic and very exciting.”
The reporter who wrote that, Elizabeth Bewley, is with Gannett’s D.C. bureau. I was talking to her and asked her name and when she said, “Bewley,” I thought she said, “Bueller.” Of course, this immediately made me think of the movie line: “Bueller? Bueller?”
Tom Colella is a great guy. I had a chance to talk to him when Buerkle’s supporters held a reception last night at the Dubliner. More updates in a few minutes.
UPDATE IV: Regular readers will remember that the day Da Tech Guy and I arrived in Buerkle’s district was the same day a Siena College poll — front-page news in the Sunday edition of the Syracuse Post-Standard — showed Democrat incumbent Dan Maffei leading Buerkle 51-39. At Wednesday night’s reception, I had a chance to speak to Republican pollster John McLaughlin, who explained why that was a “drive-by poll”:
McLaughlin says: “They were biasing the questionnaire within a biased sample.” The Siena poll surveyed registered voters (not properly screened for likely voters) and the questionnaire began by asking a serious of questions about controversial issues (e.g., extending the Bush tax cuts) that had the effect of biasing the response to the question of how the respondent would vote in the congressional election. This demonstrates how sloppy reporting of poll data can result in journalism that is badly misleading.
About an hour after newly elected Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, administered the mass oath of office for all 435 House members, Buerkle had to rush from the House floor. She had a 3:30 p.m. appointment for a one-on-one ceremonial swearing-in for the cameras with Boehner and her family members.
By leaving the House floor, Buerkle missed the first vote on a resolution by the 112th Congress and her first as a member of the House of Representatives. She was among 20 House members (and 16 Republicans) to miss the procedural vote on adopting the rules of the new Congress.
Buerkle and about a dozen family members, meanwhile, stood for about 20 minutes under hot television lights while waiting for Boehner to arrive for the ceremony. Eventually, an aide brought water and a chair for Buerkle’s 89-year-old mother, Sadie, who made the trip to Washington from Auburn.
I’m told that Buerkle will be able to amend the record to reflect her “yes” vote on the resolution.
The first day of the new Congress was kind of a scramble, and not just for Buerkle. I got to Capitol Hill about 1:30 p.m. When I parked at the Union Station garage, my plan was to head to the Longworth House Office Building, where my friend Ericka Andersen has landed a job as press secretary to newly-elected Rep. Todd Rokita (IN-4) I figured I’d drop by and say “hi” to Ericka and then check the directory to locate other new members’ offices (the online congressional directory hadn’t been updated prior to the swearing-in).
As I walked past the Hart Senate Office Building entrance on Delaware Avenue, however, I had an idea. So I went inside and asked the security guard, “Where’s Marco Rubio’s office?” He gave me directions: Down the hall, through the tunnel to the Dirksen building, take a right through the cafeteria . . .
Alas, poor Marco! Florida’s Tea Party superstar has been stuck in a temporary office in the basement, behind the cafeteria, on a dead-dead corridor across the hall from the Senate stationery store!
The new senator himself wasn’t in — “spending some family time” after the swearing-in, his receptionist said. Rubio’s office is next door to the temporary office of newly-elected Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana. A staffer in Coats’ office explained to me that unlike the House — where departing members are whisked out of their offices and the new members whisked in before the swearing-in — the Senate gives departing members up to five months to clear out of their offices. So new senators like Rubio and Coats might not be in their permanent offices until May.
Anyway, after I’d jotted down the names of the press secretaries for these two new members (collecting such contacts being the main purpose of my trip), then I went back to the elevator to get up to the ground floor and make my way out. As I approached the elevator, I saw a familiar face.
“Senator Lott!” I said. For indeed, there was Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, former Senate majority leader, just walking down the hall. No entourage, no aides or staffers or reporters following him around — just a senator walking through the basement of the Dirksen building.
“How you doing?” said Sen. Lott, who didn’t seem to recognize me as well as I recognized him. “You having a good time?”
“Oh, yes — having a great time!” I answered. “Good to see you.”
“Thanks — good to see you, too,” he said, and off he went. Whether he was going to get some stationery or to check in on Rubio and Coats, I’m not sure.
My adventure on Capitol Hill continued, but I’ll tell the rest of it in the next update. Have you contributed to Shoe Leather Fund yet?
UPDATE VI: Leaving the Dirksen building, I continued up toward the Capitol, crossing Constitution Avenue. I walked south across the east front of the Capitol — past the rows of SUVs and town cars waiting to convey congressional leaders to their post-swearing-in destinations — and when I got to the other side, near Independence Avenue, I saw a small group of pro-life protesters:
Nearby, famous pro-life activist Randall Terry was recording his podcast/broadcast TV show:
I had a good conversation with Mr. Terry who, despite his firebrand reputation as the founder of Operation Rescue, is actually a genial and humorous fellow. While I was talking to him, I saw a familiar face coming up the sidewalk from the direction of the Longworth building:
Excuse the unfortunate shadow on the photo. That’s Deb McCown, whom I supervised when she was an intern at The Washington Times. Deb’s now an award-winning reporter for the Bristol (Va.) Herald-Courier and was in town to cover the swearing-in of Rep. Morgan Griffith (VA-9), whom regular readers will remember from my final trip of the 2010 campaign season.
Deb had been to Griffith’s office (1108 Longworth), where my buddy Blake Roark is now a member of Griffith’s congressional staff. Deb said Griffith wasn’t in his office, and she had been told he was in the Capitol, so she was hurrying on her way over there to try to find him for an interview. Obviously, she succeeded, because here’s her story for the Herald-Courier:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Speaking with his family outside the House chamber, U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith searched for a pen.
The only one he had was red, and he had to sign the paperwork that comes with taking office as a member of Congress: the oath of office and a pledge not to reveal any state secrets.
The Salem Republican, who unseated 28-year incumbent Rick Boucher in November’s election, was sworn in as Virginia’s 9th District Congressman on Wednesday, taking the oath along with other members of the 112th Congress.
Asked for an interview, he made an unusual request: “Let’s trade pens.”
“I’ve decided I’m not going to sign my oath in red,” he said. . . .
Read the rest of Deb’s story. It’s good to see a young journalist doing Old School reporting. Whether or not I deserve any credit for my former intern’s success, I’ll claim it anyway. And I’ll finish telling you about the rest of my day on Capitol Hill in another update but . . . hey, have you hit the tip jar yet?
UPDATE VII: OK, so Deb had to hurry off in pursuit of Griffith. I waved good-bye and headed off toward the Longworth building. The crossing light at Independence Avenue was red, so I had to wait. I glanced back toward the Capitol and did a double-take: Who was that familiar-looking lady walking down the sidewalk toward me?
It was newly sworn-in Congresswoman Buerkle, with some of her staff and family, en route to her new office which — as she informed me — was in 1630 Longworth.
Once again, I made a snap decision: I’d scratch my original plan and just shadow Team Buerkle. The new plan proved extraordinarily convenient from a journalistic perspective.
For example, when we got to the entrance to the Longworth building, there was a line to get through the metal detectors. But I was now part of a congressional entourage, you see. Buerkle flashed her membership pin and — whoosh! — we sailed right through the security checkpoint.
Kinda cool. Anyway, we went to her office and I made sure I got this photo:
That’s a photo I wasn’t sure I’d ever see. Remember that three-week vote count that didn’t end until the Democrat conceded right before Thanksgiving? Inside her office, several of Buerkle’s supporters who had traveled from New York for the swearing-in were waiting for her.
There was coffee and cookies (I never miss a chance at free food), and I talked to some of her supporters about the amazing campaign. They asked how I’d become interested in Buerkle’s campaign. I explained that several people (including the Lonely Conservative) had urged me to write about Buerkle. My first post on NY-25 was Oct. 12 — when I was in Boston to cover the Sean Bielat campaign, and I wrote:
Well, of course, by the time we did get there — Sunday, Oct. 17 — the situation looked bleak. Buerkle was being slammed with Democrat attack ads, and there was that Syracuse Post-Standard story about the poll showing her trailing by 12 points. That was absolutely the rock-bottom moment of the campaign and, frankly, I was a lot less confident at that point than my “landslide” prediction might have suggested.
Some of the New York folks I talked to yesterday at Congressman Buerkle’s office had been interviewed by Da Tech Guy at the Oct. 18 press conference where Ann Marie rebutted the Democrat attack ads. How weird was it — what a strange twist of fate — that out of all the congressional campaigns in the country, Pete and I just happened to show up in that district on that day? How strange that Buerkle ended up being the 242nd seat — the last Republican to clinch a win — in the biggest GOP landslide in more than 60 years?
While her supporters posed for pictures with the new Congresswoman at her Longworthy building office yesterday, her staff was busy arranging to get everyone back over to the Capitol for the swearing-in photo. They had to get a wheelchair for Mrs. Colella; it’s a long way through the subterranean passages between Longworth and the Capitol and, while Mrs. Colella is ambulatory, she walks slowly and that long trek would have been quite an ordeal for her.
Congresswoman Buerkle gave her supporters a brief speech, and then it was time for the family (and me) to depart to the Capitol with two staffers guiding the group. I’ll continue the story in the next update. And if you get the feeling maybe you should hit the tip jar . . . well, don’t fight the feeling!
UPDATE VIII: Sorry this story is taking so long to finish, but I keep getting interrupted by breaking news — a bomb scare in Maryland, Herman Cain speaking at CPAC — and so now we continue with the adventure.
We went into the catacombs beneath the Longworth Building and through a tunnel where we boarded a little subway train. I sat in the same car with Rep. Buerkle’s mother, brother and nephew. The train took us to the Capitol and we came in through the basement, until we arrived in Statuary Hall, where there was a table set up to sign in the members arriving for their photos. I took a few seconds of video:
Note Rep. Buerkle’s take-charge manner, leading the way. Also, notice her slightly exasperated expression: “Oh, no, it’s McCain with his pink camera again!” By this point, we were running a minute or two late, in part because Rep. Buerkle’s mother had to go by a wheelchair-accessible route through the underbelly of the Longworth building.
When we finally arrived in the room where they were getting the photos taken, there was a gaggle of reporters, photographers and TV cameras:
This is where the long wait began. Evidently, our delayed arrival had prompted Speaker Boehner to take a break. (I’ll just take a wild guess that he stepped out for a cigarette or two.) Meanwhile, staffers arranged Rep. Buerkle and her family for the their photo:
Speaker Boehner came in, quickly posed for photos, and left. We then exited through the other side of the room. Rep. Buerkle stopped for an interview with a reporter, and I bumped into Jon Ward of the Daily Caller. We talked a for minute, then I followed Rep. Buerkle’s part down a corridor where we bumped into yet another familiar face:
Rep. Renee Ellmers (NC-2) and Ann Marie have kind of become buddies in the 112th Congress. They both ran “outsider”-style grassroots campaigns and both had to go through extended vote-counts in close races. (Ellmers beat Bob Etheridge, who didn’t concede until Nov. 19.)
Anyway, after that surprise interview opportunity, I headed outside to check my phone calls — I’d turned my phone off while I was in the photo-op room — and then on to the evening’s celebrations. This is the part where one of my Tweets led to those Tabitha Hale marriage rumors. I’ll tell the rest of that story in the final update, but don’t you think it’s about time to hit the tip jar?
UPDATE IX: Before I split up with Team Buerkle, I made sure I got the answer to the key question: Where’s the party tonight?
It was a joyous discovery that the swearing-in reception would be held at The Dubliner, a fine establishment where I’ve enjoyed many a post-deadline refreshment. (The Dubliner is the nearest bar to the offices of The Washington Times, so that was where we’d meet for late-night beers back in the day.) And it was just three blocks away from the Union Pub, where Americans For Prosperity was hosting another reception.
As I walked back north in front of the Capitol, I did something professional D.C. journalists seldom do:
This kind of photo is a bit too tourist-y, you see. It’s weird how people take their vacations and come to Washington to see the sights that locals barely even notice. I usually come into DC via the GW Parkway and Connecticut Avenue, drive right past the Washington Monument and don’t even blink. Something else you get so used to seeing in D.C. that you don’t usually notice it:
That’s Brett Baier of Fox News doing a report in front of the Capitol. Actually, he was going over his notes prior to going on air. On days when something big like a State of the Union Address is happening, you’ll see six or eight camera crews scattered around the Capitol grounds doing what they call “stand ups.” Apparently the rule in TV news is, you aren’t really doing congressional reporting unless people can see the Capitol dome behind your head while you’re talking. I don’t think that rule applies to the Internet, but I figured I’d post that picture of me in front of the Capitol dome, just in case.
Well, I went to the Dubliner and, because I was a guest (and the beer was free) I consider the reception to be off-the-record. Let liberals imagine what they will: Lobbyists with briefcases full of unmarked bills from “secret foreign donors,” etc. In all truth, it was just a bunch of people having a party. And why shouldn’t they have a party? They won the election. I talked to some guys about the George Allen 2006 Senate campaign and one told me that Allen is definitely running in 2012. Is that some kind of “exclusive”? Don’t know. Don’t care. I was off the clock.
After about an hour, the guest of honor showed up — Congresswoman Buerkle had to go to another reception before she came to her own reception — and I stayed about another 30 minutes before leaving for the AFP blogger bash up Massachusetts Avenue at the Union Pub. That was where I found Tabitha Hale borrowing a fedora from this dude.
Tabitha (a/k/a Pink Elephant Pundit) is New Media director for FreedomWorks. She’s also from North Carolina and 25 years old — which makes her practically an old maid by down-home standards. So I started in on my usual pro-marriage encouragement harassment, telling these young folks they ought to run off and get married post-haste. And that’s when I Tweeted this:
How that blew up into a huge online controversy, I’m not sure. But if it results in Tabitha getting a diamond ring from somebody, I figure maybe she’ll finally hit my tip jar.
The effort to liberate VA-8 from “Gentleman” Jim Moran’s reign of error continues apace. The candidate is fresh off of a news conference to answer the mail on the 06 October offensive remarks Moran made.
Murray momentum grows. The bus is stocked and fueled. It will be cruising the district, spreading the word that there is a better way than Moran’s approach.
The phones are fully staffed by the most awesome talent available:
Tellingly, it appears that Moran has withdrawn from tomorrow night’s penultimate debate. Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Moran! The Murray campaign is not confident that Moran can muster the fortitude to support the final debate.
This blog empathizes with Moran’s staff and hope the résumé work goes well for them.
Newsreal contributor Susannah Fleetwood attended BlogCon, where she was kind enough to pose with sidekick Smitty:
Earlier today, Smitty highlighted Mrs. Fleetwood’s latest column and, in an e-mail thanking us for the linkage, she mentioned remembering that someone had taken a photo like this. However, concerned that perhaps Frau Smith might share Mrs. Other McCain’s (unjustified) suspicion that BlogCon was a crazed saturnalia of New Media debauchery, I had previously refrained from publishing this picture.
That is a lanyard around Susannah’s neck, not Mardi Gras beads.
. . . of Astoundingly Stupid Things No Conservative Blogger in His Right Mind Would Ever Even Think About Doing:
Publish posts conflating “neocons” and “Jews” in such a way as to provoke accusations of anti-Semitism.
Respond to such accusations by publishing deranged rants against Jews.
Get into hateful public pissing matches with Ace of Spades and other cuddly ewoks who never harmed a fly, at least if the fly usually voted Republican.
Push that kind of act to such outrageous extremes that one Sunday morning I’m finally confonted with Twitter messages like this:
Now, this is merely the short list, and DoublePlusUnDead tells me the list could be extended ad infinitum. It has not generally been my habit to intrude into other people’s online flame-wars, and no one would ever nominate me as Blogospheric Arbiter of Civility, Decorum and Multicultural Sensitivity. Continue reading A Short List . . . →
Tabitha Hale at about 1:30 PM, cagily refusing to guess the attendance:
Tito ‘The Builder’ Munoz, legal immigrant and friend of this blog. Not to pick on the vaunted Barbie Cam (Stacy’s bubble-gum pink, metrosexual rig rumored to have been a gift from the goth twin Skippy), but the Panasonic just does a better job. Like a knob, I missed the first minute or two, but here is Tito’s rousing climax:
Finally, a classic P.J. O’Rourke line, suitable for most any occasion:
At BlogCon Friday, we went to the Newseum in D.C. for a panel discussion that was supposed to be about politics. During the Q&A period, however, it got hijacked into a discussion of The World’s Most Boring Policy Issue. After ten minutes of this narcolepsy-inducing blather, I gestured frantically at Tabitha Hale and got the microphone for the next question, the beginning of which was Tweeted by Glen Asbury:
Seriously. That was ten minutes of our lives we will never get back.
Bill Whittle and Stephen Green now have perfect spinal alignment, after hanging out for a few minutes with Dr. Melissa Clouthier. She’s billing it to PJTV’s health insurance plan.
