Quickies (the crosshairs edition)

A round-up of articles, columns, news items and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.


Alternate paranthetical: The week that the professional liberal-Left media industrial complex augered-in in a fiery ball of hypocrisy, wild and baseless speculation and abject unprofessionalism.


The President made a fine speech at the memorial service/pep rally in Tucson this past Wednesday, striking the appropriate tone by backhanding the liberal-Left for their unhinged and appalling accusations against conservatives, Sarah Palin and the tea party.

And even now when everybody... everybody knows this guy had no political affiliations to speak of, we have not yet heard any apologies, corrections or walking back of the truly divisive and politically incendiary language from any of the same people making them though we feel no need to attempt a more civil tone as that is something we have possessed all along. So forgive us for thinking then that many of the President's supporters and cheerleaders have quite a bit to answer for and have willfully destroyed any credibility they may have thought they had by their words and actions this past week.


And with respect to the Tucson rally, Tammy Bruce tweeted:

"I went to a Massacre Rally and all I got was a lousy t-shirt."

James Taranto points out that not all massacres are created equally:

After the horrific shooting spree, the editorial board of New York Times offered a voice of reasoned circumspection: "In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions . . .," the paper counseled.

Here's how the sentence continued: ". . . from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East."

The Tucson Safeway massacre prompted exactly the opposite reaction. What was once known as the paper of record egged on its readers to draw invidious conclusions that are not only prejudicial but contrary to fact. In doing so, the Times has crossed a moral line.

Allahpundit breaks down the media's predictable disdain for Palin's video/speech as compared to that of the President's.

Seriously, how dare she inject herself into this national tragedy by attempting to defend herself against all the crap we were making up about her out of the thin blue air. The nerve.





You know, since Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK and since he was also a Marine, maybe the Marines should dial it back a notch.




Charles Krauthammer on the obvious Loughner/tea party/Sarah Palin links:

Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner’s fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords back to at least 2007, when he attended a townhall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who began an article thus: “I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it.”

The always civil and thoughtful David Harsanyi of the Denver Post sees right through the non-sense and calls B.S.

We can argue about those things, I know. We can cobble together stupid remarks by radio talk show hosts or union activists or congresspeople and smear half the country. We can play tit-for-tat with Tea Party banners and anti-war bumper stickers and dig up some figurative rhetoric that sounds over the top retroactively and blow it out of proportion.

But this impending conversation about civility and our climate of hate is not only a useless one, it also is meant to discourage dissent. It is a rigged talk, because not only do we — by any standard and context available — reside in a highly civil and peaceful political system, violence is almost non-existent. The Tea Party didn't pick up pitchforks and storm the White House; they knocked off Republicans in primaries.

Now, we may want to have a conversation about our policies regarding the mentally ill or the need for more gun control (though I may disagree with the outcome) because, after all, they are relevant to the horrible events of the past week. But conservatives should be wary of any national dialogue about civility or any beer summit about the specter of political violence.

It is nothing more than a setup.

Yep. Roughly translated we believe Harsanyi is telling liberals they can take their "civility" and "conversation" and shove it in their ear.




B-Daddy is worried about a potential double-dip recession brought on, in part, by a housing market that has never been allowed to properly deflate and state economies that are an absolute mess.



Uh-oh. Tucson shooting victim not sticking with the liberal-Left's media narrative. W.C. Varones has the details, here.



The Scratching Post: Meat: good. Fur: bad. Why?