Chris Matthews has clearly forgotten all the concern over violent rhetoric he and his colleagues expressed in January after the tragic shootings in Tucson.
On this week's syndicated program bearing his name, Matthews began the show saying, "Going for the kill! This week's shutdown fight is just the beginning. The young Republican turks want to fight to the death!" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Despite it being only three months since Democrats and their media minions sharply criticized "violent rhetoric" and imagery in the wake of the tragic shootings in Tucson, left-leaning elected officials have been regularly using such language in regards to the budget battle without the slightest outrage from America's so-called journalists.
On Friday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin took to the airwaves to challenge "Meet the Press" host David Gregory to report on Sunday's program what these Democrats have been saying (YouTube audio follows with commentary):
"In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts," claimed senior Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter at a pro-choice rally on the National Mall Wednesday. "Now they're here to kill women." Slaughter, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, went on to compare proposed GOP proposals on abortion, bizarrely, to "show-me-your-papers" policies in the Third Reich.
It's been two days since Slaughter made these incendiary and baseless remarks, yet there has been a virtual media blackout. So once again we have to ask, as did the Washington Examiner's David Freddoso, what if a Tea Partier had said it? [Disclosure: I also write for the Examiner]
The story was initially reported by NewsBusters sister site CNSNews.com, and aside from the Examiner, no other news organization has reported on Slaughter's absurd statement thus far. It's safe to assume that if a conservative Republican had made similar remarks, coverage would be significantly greater (check out the video of Slaughter's remarks below the break).
Remember all that fuss two months ago about violent rhetoric and imagery following the tragic Tucson shootings that almost killed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)?
Apparently the folks at Time magazine have forgotten, for on Saturday, they actually published an article with the following headline:
A Wisconsin Democrat Assemblyman turned to a Republican Assemblywoman in the middle of a legislative session Friday and said, "You are f--king dead."
Despite the following report from the Northwestern at 12:53 PM Monday, no major media outlet other than Fox News has covered this disgusting story:
James Taranto, who writes the “Best of the Web” column for the Wall Street Journal online, continues to be on fire on the subject of New York Times hypocrisy over “violent” political rhetoric. His Monday column opened with another moral excoriation of the Times, based on its Saturday editorial endorsing the latest cause from Common Cause, a left-wing advocacy group. An excerpt:
The New York Times editorial page, a division of the New York Times Co., on Saturday endorsed Common Cause's personal attack on Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. As we explained Friday, Common Cause, a Washington-based corporation, is complaining about Scalia and Thomas's having joined Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the 2010 decision that overturned a law criminalizing certain political speech by corporations.
After arguing that “Common Cause's complaint is not only meritless but frivolous,” Taranto quoted a damning excerpt from the Times editorial.
Justice Scalia, who is sometimes called "the Justice from the Tea Party," met behind closed doors on Capitol Hill to talk about the Constitution with a group of representatives led by Representative Michele Bachmann of the House Tea Party Caucus.
Then he really got tough on the Times.
Andrea Mitchell, for a second day in a row, pushed for more gun control on her MSNBC show as she encouraged Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, "You and Mike Bloomberg...have all been yelling and screaming," about more restrictive anti-gun measures, "Somebody's got to listen in Washington." Initially invited on Thursday's Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss the Obama administration's push for more green jobs, Nutter wasn't allowed to finish the segment without Mitchell pressing him: "As a big city mayor, what are you saying to the White House about waiting for this gun control speech we keep hearing about?"
On yesterday's show Mitchell expressed disappointment, to the aformentioned New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, that Barack Obama had "absolutely nothing, not one word....not even a sentence" in his State of the Union speech about gun control.
(video, audio and transcript after the jump)
Within minutes of the tragic shootings in Tucson, the Left and their media minions were sure that violent rhetoric and gun imagery were responsible for inciting Jared Lee Loughner to that heinous act.
Now, just 23 days since that horrible event and after all kinds of calls for a toning down of such rhetoric, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has issued a press release entitled "DCCC Launches 'Drive to 25' Ad & Grassroots Campaign in Targeted Districts" (image courtesy World Net Daily:
The media couldn't pin the Gabrielle Giffords shooting on conservatives, but that doesn't mean they've stopped trolling for proof that conservatives are racist and violent. In California, a liberal state senator running for Mayor of San Francisco named Leland Yee received an indirect death threat after he attacked Rush Limbaugh. Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Tony Beard said he and the California Highway Patrol are looking into the letter, which includes a drawing of a noose. The Los Angeles Times managed to start connecting dots to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting:
Yee, who is running for mayor of San Francisco, had recently accused radio personality Rush Limbaugh of mocking the Chinese language and culture during his radio program.
The fax received by Yee’s office Wednesday uses racist language about Yee and Obama and goes on to say: "Without exceptions, Marxists are enemies of the United States Constitution! Death to all Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!"
Prior to calls for civility and what turned out to be a disastrous "date night" for the Democrats, Barack Obama was nicely set up to catapult himself into a fabulous 2011 approaching next year's reelection campaign with an enviable head of steam.
Having been all but considered dead - am I allowed to say that post-Tucson? - after his shellacking at the polls in November, the President eked out win after win in the lame duck session, and did a very admirable job with his memorial speech.
Even conservatives like syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer were singing his praises.
The nation was also getting a proverbial thrill back up its collective leg according to polls making the coincidence of all these stars aligning so perfectly right before the State of the Union address almost Capraesque.
It appears NBC's Matt Lauer is not happy about Barack Obama's failure to exploit the Tucson shooting to push for more gun control as on Wednesday's Today show, he seemingly expressed disappointment to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that the President "missed" an "opportunity" to address it in his State of the Union speech.
Lauer's anti-gun question to Giuliani came on the heels of his pushing White House senior advisor, on yesterday's show, to reveal if Obama would join current NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg in making a push for more gun control. On this morning's Today show, Lauer went even further, as he, in addition to throwing Bloomberg's words in Giuliani's face, also read directly from a Brady Center press release, as seen in the following January 26 exchange:
(video, audio and transcript after the jump)
Mike Huckabee on Sunday demonstrated to his Fox News audience how politically correct, violent rhetoric-free speech can work on television if you try hard enough.
He also showed how absurd it will be if the liberal media reaction to the Tucson shootings goes too far (video follows with transcript and commentary):