The Giffords shooting was not about rhetoric

Though the Left and their allies in the media are desperately trying to make it about that. But the facts to support that narrative are not there:

The one thing the media can’t stand to tell you about Gabrielle Giffords

[...] Watching the coverage of the story this weekend was truly perplexing. The left immediately jumped to blame the right before we even knew he name of the shooter. The right correctly defended itself pointing out that most of his rhetoric was from the left. At moments of attempted fairness, both sides say that they have some responsibility for angry rhetoric. The media, which is forever trying to elevate itself above that which it covers, claims that one thing we can all agree on is that there is a problem with the discourse in this country.

However, the one thing that no one seems to want to talk about is that after looking at the gunman and his ramblings, I don’t see how a discussion about rhetoric applies at all.

The truth is, unless there are a lot of new facts to come that we don’t know about yet, this shooting says absolutely nothing about our political discourse. Nothing. In fact, it says absolutely nothing about society as a whole. Zero.

I know this is disappointing to politicians and the media, but sometimes the story just isn’t about you. It’s about the people who were shot, and the person who shot them.

Think about this. Jared Lee Loughner was fixated on Gabrielle Giffords since at least August 2007. You might recognize that date as occurring approximately two years before the Tea Party existed. When he had a chance to finally interact with her, he asked her a question about grammar. Grammar.

He’s just crazy. There’s no larger story here. There’s no there there.

The media and political hacks have used this tragedy as an excuse to talk about something they want to talk about—supposed right wing violence. There is absolutely no evidence at this time that supports that the right wing had anything to do with the killers actions. It’s the ultimate “when did you stop beating your wife” storyline. Conservatives are forced to defend themselves against a charge that no one with any evidence is presenting. [...]

This is what the Left always tries to do. When the facts aren't on their side, they can't win an argument, so they have to resort to silencing the messenger by any means possible, even completely dishonest means:

A Horrid Crime, a Dishonest Debate

[...] The atrocity has called on us to indulge a double fantasy. First, that it is worth the time and effort to engage Obama’s base in a debate about the root cause of the shootings, and specifically about whether what the Left frames as an atmosphere of toxic rhetoric (translation: the Tea Party, talk radio, and Fox News) is to blame. Second, that without such a debate, we wouldn’t and couldn’t know why this atrocity happened.

To grasp the absurdity of the first point, one need only remember the reaction to terrorist attacks by two jihadists: Maj. Nidal Hassan, who killed 13 people and wounded numerous others in the Fort Hood massacre, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to explode a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. There could not have been a more committed effort to deny that Islamist ideology and its hateful rhetoric had anything whatsoever to do with these events.

Very simply: The Left likes Islam and sympathizes with the Islamist critique of America, while it seethes with contempt for the likes of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and any person or institution that can serve as a symbol of conservatism or bourgeois American life. Consequently, any heinous act that can be contorted, however counterfactually, into a condemnation of the Right will be exploited for that purpose. Conversely, there is to be quick rationalization for, and then studious suppression of, any shameful episode that is too clearly traceable to a leftist cause célèbre — Islam, a movie pining for George W. Bush’s assassination, ghoulish wishes that Clarence Thomas or Dick Cheney will meet swift and painful deaths, or Senate Democrats’ comparing U.S. troops to Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot, or terrorists.

There is no point debating any of this. Two years ago, we were still being told dissent was the highest form of patriotism; now it’s the root cause of murderous rampage. Modern leftists are tacticians. They’ve convinced themselves of the rightness of their cause, obviating the need to be consistent or faithful to facts in any single episode. For them, it’s all about how the episode can be spun to help the cause. That’s worth understanding, but not debating.

Second, can we forget that Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn’s atrocities transformed them into icons of the modern Left — respected “educators” still passionate about “social justice”? Barack Obama didn’t say, “I’ll have nothing to do with unrepentant terrorists who dedicate books to deranged assassins.” He chose to hold his political coming-out party in their living room and cultivated relationships with them, just as he cultivated a relationship with other hate-mongering radicals.

It is as stupid to claim that rhetoric causes violence as it is to claim that normal people can be entrapped into terrorism. What vitriolic thing would someone need to say to you, whether the vitriol could be cast as right-wing or left-wing, that would get you to pick up a gun and start spraying bullets at people with whom you disagreed, however vigorously, about some political or social issue? It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.

If wanton violence has a cause other than mental illness, it is a culture that lionizes the savages. That culture is not the culture of the Tea Partiers so despised by the Left. [...]

The Left is always accusing other people of doing what they themselves are doing. Earlier in the article, it's mentioned that Ayer's and Dohrn had dedicated a book to Bobby Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. It's clear who their hero's are, and the tactics they approve of.

And these folks, and their supporters, accuse the Tea Partiers of complicity in the Gifford shooting, without any evidence? They tell us not to rush to judgment in about the Fort Hood shootings, but they themselves rush to judgment about the Giffords shooting before we even know any of the facts, before we even know what the shooters name is?

The shooting was not about rhetoric. Don't play the game. Call them on it.
     

Obama, ACORN, Wright & Ayers all tie together

There are various arguments as to why Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers are not important and shouldn't be held against Obama. He is also trying to distance himself from ACORN, which he has strong ties with. But what if these are not all isolated associations, but in fact, all related to each other, forming a much larger picture of the Obama Agenda?

Stanly Kurtz at NRO shows us how the pieces fit together:

Wright 101
Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism

It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.

John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign. [...]

Is it any wonder the Obama campaign has tried so hard to block Kurtz's digging, or that Obama's thugs have tried to shut him up?

The rest of the Kurtz article goes into great detail about Obama's associations, and what they mean. The MSM could have reported on this at any time, but chose not to.

John McCain has a lot of material here to use in the debate tonight. But will he?
     

Bill Ayers; has Obama's terrorist chicken come home to roost at last?

I hope so. It's long overdue. From Nealz Nuze:

FINALLY ... SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT OBAMA-AYERS

And it is the Republican vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. On Saturday, Palin said that Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She was referencing Obama's association with Weatherman Bill Ayers. Here's the quote, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country ... This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America." View the video.

Finally, someone from the McCain campaign comes out and says what has been on the mind of many. On the same day that Palin made this comment, The New York Times published a piece, which tries to explain the ties between Obama and Ayers: "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths." Seems that the Times hasn't been keeping up with the research of Stanley Kurtz, who has been endlessly shuffling through files at the library of the University of Illinois at Chicago to find the truth.

The Obama campaign has chalked Palin comment to a "smear campaign." Obama says that the Republicans are using "smears" in order to distract the voters from real problems. A presidential candidate who befriends or is befriended by an unrepentant terrorist is a real problem in my eye ... though perhaps not in the eyes of those who hate America.

But Sarah Palin is standing behind her comments. She says that this issue is fair to talk about. She said, "The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn't been talked about, and I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room." Man, sure glad the McCain campaign finally let her out of her cage.

Before we get to the most asinine part of this story ... let it be noted that in 2001, Bill Ayers took the infamous photograph of him standing on the American flag. That was also when he told The New York Times that he had "no regrets" about his actions in the Weather Underground. In fact, he wishes he could do more. Now during this same time, Barack Obama was serving on the board of the Woods Foundation with none other than Bill Ayers. [...]

I've blogged about this, plenty of people have. It's seldom mentioned in the campaign, because predictably, any criticism of Obama is met with charges of racism.

The McCain campaign needs to:

a.) Realize that discussing facts is never racist. What is, is.

b.) Realize the Obama campaign is going to try to label them as racists anyway, no matter what they do.

That doesn't mean the McCain campaign has to start flinging mud, but it does mean they ought to stop acting as if they are walking on egg shells that they have to worry about breaking. Let the Obama campaign worry about his thin-as-eggshell excuses. Let him explain himself and his associations. That's his job.

I appreciate that John McCain doesn't want to run a dirty campaign. I admire his wanting to keep standards high. But certain things have to be talked about, things that ought to have been addressed long ago, that weren't.


Maynard at the Tammy Bruce blog has a thoughtful post on this topic:

Obama: The Final Word

With the political arguments swirling fast and furious, here's what I see as the bottom line on Obama.

I don't place much faith in what a candidate says and does after declaring his or her candidacy. Once he steps into the spotlight, he's playing to the crowd. He's on good behavior, and he'll tell us whatever we want to hear. This is a demonstration of his acting ability...and a politician is indeed part actor, but there's more to the job than that. The true measure of the man is what he did with his life when he didn't think he was being watched. That's what you're going to get when the candidate is in power, and never mind the speeches.

As we do with celebrities, we tend to project our fantasies onto politicians. The less we know about a person, the easier this is. With Obama's charisma and short history, and with the sympathies of the mainstream media behind him, he's been allowed to remain too much of a blank slate. This is slowly changing, as the reality becomes known and eats away at his mystique. Note that Obama's greatest string of victories in the Democratic primaries came when he was a new thing. As information trickled out, he lost steam. If more facts had been on the table earlier, Hillary certainly would have been the Democratic nominee.

Our job as voters isn't to nitpick and debate every nuance and gaffe. In a world of trivia and spin, we must seek the most essential truths and make them known. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Maynard goes on to look at the essential truths about Obama, the man and what he did prior to being in the national spotlight. He addresses many of the concerns I and others have had all along. He looks at the eggshell-thin excuses that have been offered for those concerns, and finds them desperately wanting for credibility.

Read the whole thing. This is the vetting the Democrats should have done. This is the vetting process the MSM should have done, but didn't. Why? Because it's not a pretty picture, folks. I'm amazed that he's gotten as far as he has. I try to imagine a Republican equivalent, who could escape such scrutiny, but I can't.

It seems the Obama campaign's biggest defense is accusing any of his critics of racism: "Don't step on our egg shells, or we will call you a racist". It's not good enough, we need real debate and intelligent discussion. America deserves better.


Related Links:

Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers

Obama, Ayers and Dohrn - birds of a feather

Barack Obama; the larger, complete picture

     

Obama Thugs go after NRO Journalist

From Michelle Malkin:

Next, the Obama thugs came for Stanley Kurtz

First, they came for TV stations daring to air an independent ad about Barack Obama and unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Next, they came for GOP donors.

Now, they are shamelessly attacking National Review investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz — one of conservatism’s most thoughtful and penetrating writers on academic and educational affairs. Kurtz has been at the forefront probing Obama’s relationships with left-wing ideologues. It was his public information request and public call for help that led to the University of Illinois - Chicago finally releasing tons of files that shed light on the Obama/Ayers working relationship. The Obama camp is condemning Kurtz in harsher terms than it ever condemned the terrorist Ayers. Kurtz has been attacked now as a “right-wing hatchet man” and “slimy character assassin.”

Here are the Kurtz-smearing talking points the Obama campaign sent to its worshipers.

As I reported yesterday, Kurtz spent two hours on legendary radio talk show host Milt Rosenberg’s Chicago program on WGN last night detailing his initial findings. The Obama campaign went ballistic — and in typical Chicago mafia-style, smeared Kurtz and tried to shut down the show. [...]

NRO is a respectable conservative magazine. Over the years I've really appreciated it's in depth debate and discussion of political issues, and it's thorough, calm and rational examination of the facts pertaining to any situation.

Stanley Kurtz is simply looking through documents that should have been made available to the public anyhow, to see if what Obama has said about his association with Bill Ayers is true. If Obama has nothing to hide, then let him hide nothing. If he didn't lie, then what is he worried about? Does he need to be reminded that this isn't Venezuela?
     

When is Fascism not Fascism?

When Democrats do it:


From Tammy Bruce:

Obama's Fascist Heart: Tries to Censor Ayers Ad

[...] Barry, you see, doesn't like the American Issues Project ad reminding Americans of his documented and admitted-to relationship with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And how does a leftist respond to painful truth? Calls for "criminal" investigations, mass email harassment, FCC threats to stations who dare to run the ad, and threats to sponsors and advertisers of stations that also do what they are legally, and constitutionally, allowed to do.

[...]

Just one more sign of just how Marxist the Obama campaign really is. If you're a Classical Liberal and a Dem, you should begin to look very carefully at this rather ominous sign. Time to wake up, folks, if you haven't done so already. [...]

Bold emphasis mine. Read the whole thing for some links and quotes. Our nation's political parties can and should have strong differences of opinion. Obama can explain his ties with terrorists and hatemongers in any way he wishes. But the American public doesn't have to put up with demonstrable lies about his associations, and aggressive attempts to cover those lies up. Are the Obamas just black Clintons? So much for "change".

More from Nealz Nuze:

AYERS AD BROUHAHA

[...] Now might be a good time to remind you how Obama won his first run for the Illinois State Senate. He didn't win by convincing the voters that he was the better candidate. He won by sending workers to the elections office to pour over petitions until he managed to get his opposition removed from the ballot. Now he's trying to use the U.S. legal system to keep people from running perfectly legitimate advertisements opposing his candidacy. There's really not much evidence that Obama is a fan of the electoral process. He would rather use a legal process to gain power.

Bold emphasis mine. Read the whole thing for details about the methods being used to achieve this. I guess that's what they call "Chicago Style" politics? It might work in Chicago, but I hope it doesn't in the national arena. We deserve better.

None of this will matter much to Obama's fans, who believe anything he does is ok. But this election will be decided by swing voters. Hopefully they aren't blinded by adoration.


Related Links:

Does Obama have fleas?

Obama's illegal campaign contributions

Barack Obama; the larger, complete picture

What has happened to the Democrat Party?
     

Does Obama have fleas?

Not literally, of course. I'm thinking of the saying, "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas". Both the Obamas have had associations with some pretty flea-infested dogs. And now the fleas are coming back to bite them. Consider this ad Obama is fighting to have suppressed:


URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89m0pC_bpY

It's carefully worded, and I don't see that it says anything that isn't true. He claims it does. Yet his campaign's official response to it doesn't specifically refute anything it says. Is that because it can't?

This reminds me of John Kerry and the Swiftboaters. Kerry's campaign refused to talk about what the Swiftboaters said, and the MSM went along with that. I was appalled at how the Media simply refused to discuss the matter. If the accusations were not true, they could have easily explained to us how and why, but they didn't even try. Why? Because they couldn't.

Now Obama is supposedly taking a more aggressive stance than Kerry did, but it seems he also can't refute what is undeniably true. Is the best he can do is to silence his opponents by whatever means possible? That's what fascist thugs do when they know they can't win arguments because the facts don't support them; they try to forcibly silence the critics.

Unfortunately it's a tactic that's being increasingly used by the Democrats in this country whenever they are confronted with facts, and it is one of the reasons I have lost all respect for the Democrat party generally. Sadly, it seems to be the best they are capable of.

The hard left associations of the Obama's are well established, no matter how much they would like to white-wash it now. This stuff ought to have been vetted much earlier on by the press, but it wasn't. Maynard at the Tammy Bruce blog has this post this morning regarding Michelle Obama's speech last night:

Michelle Obama

[...] The problem with the Obamas is, in a word, their long history of close association with hatemongers. These are not casual connections; they go to the core of what they've done with their lives so far. And now, on the very eve of the election, this offensive history is to be erased and replaced with a manufactured image that will appeal to mainstream (that is, the sane and decent portion of) America. And they expect you to buy into this nonsense.

Who are you going to believe? The pretty speeches, or your eyes and your brain?

Exactly. The problem isn't false accusations, it's the fact that people have eyes, and brains too. Michelle's speech was an emotional appeal, which in itself isn't wrong, but facts need to ALSO be considered, because emotions can deceive if they are not grounded in understanding of the facts. Speaking of facts, see the rest of the post for some of Michelle's interesting connections.

Pretty speeches don't change the facts. The whole of Obama's campaign seems to depend on pretty speeches. Something more ought to be required.

The Obamas can explain away their hard core leftist/terrorist connections any way they'd like to. They have every right to explain and counter criticism aimed at them. They have even had some good explanations for some of their controversies, thus far. But to try to silence people for pointing out facts that they can't deny, is contemptible.


Related links:

Obama Responds On Ayers

Fighting back against Obama’s thugs

Obama, Ayers and Dohrn - birds of a feather

Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers