“Villains, Violence, and Vilification”

By William L. Garvin

As soon as the health care bill was signed, the media cup overflowed with a concerted effort to stifle all dissent and paint all opposition with a “proclivity to violence” label. Once again, they have a new found and sanctimonious sensitivity that is bordering on schizophrenia. From their jaundiced soapboxes, protestors in general, and the Tea Party in particular, are violent, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, plundering mobs. Liberals of course are without sin.
When Nancy Pelosi and her Congressional phalanx marched through the health care protesters with Paul Bunyan’s gavel, she clearly intended to provoke a confrontation. In fact, she had Jesse Jackson, Jr. videotaping the entire proceeding. Surprise of surprises, there was no confrontation, no violence, and no arrests. This is typical of Tea Party gatherings where participants even pick up their trash. Law enforcement organizations, including the capitol police, consistently praise them for the order and decorum that characterizes their gatherings. Progressive causes such as Code Pink, Earth Liberation Front, WTO protestors, etc. should conduct themselves in a similar manner!
Since there was no untoward behavior recorded, a couple members of Congress stepped forward to allege they had been spat upon and called racist and homophobic slurs by chanting protestors. Once again, there is not a shred of evidence to support their charges even with the ubiquitous cell phones and cameras. The $10,000 reward for documentary evidence remains unclaimed. That hasn’t stopped the liberal media from proceeding as if the charges are fact because they want them to be true.
Every large organization will have a few fringe lunatics that the media can focus upon and proclaim them to be representative of the entire movement. If they can’t find any, they are liable to make them up. For instance, there was the reporter who wrote a story that said he heard protesters shout “kill him” in reference to Barack Obama at a Sarah Palin rally. The FBI report said it never happened and that the reporter made it up. So who’s inciting the violence?
The Reverend Al Sharpton vehemently defended Tawana Brawley and her alleged rape by a gang of white men. The entire story was a fraud and the attorney in the case, C. Vernon Mason, was subsequently disbarred. Jesse Jackson ruined the name and reputation of several Duke lacrosse players in another fake episode that led to the resignation of the overzealous prosecutor. Who’s fanning the flames of racial violence?
Chris Mathews of MSNBC and host of the violently titled “Hardball” seems to be one of the most nervous of the Nervous Nellies. His concern was much more muted when there was a movie about the assassination of George Bush or when both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney were consistently labeled as “war criminals.” Who was fanning the flames then?
Mathews also seems to suffer from convenient selective amnesia. Here is a quote from one of his Hardball segments: “You guys see Live and Let Die, the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big? In the end, they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up. I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big and at some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet, but we’ll be there to watch. I think he’s Mr. Big. I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you watching, Rush?” Who used the inflammatory rhetoric then, Chris?
On August 9, 2009, while speaking in Philadelphia, it was our President Obama who said he wanted his followers to “get in their faces.” He went on to say “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” There was no sense of outrage then nor is there any sense of outrage now. It is only the conservative protestors who must be silenced. No longer is dissent the highest form of patriotism. Hypocrisy abounds.
This manufactured outrage is a smokescreen, a feint, a cover-up so you don’t see what’s really going on. Barely noticed was the Congressional Budget Office release of its analysis of President Obama’s 2011 budget. According to the Washington Times, the national debt was $6.3 trillion when he took office. On February 1, the CBO projected President Obama’s projected deficit to be $8.53 trillion over the next 10 years; Thursday, they raised the projection to $9.75 trillion! How do you make $1.2 trillion dollar mistakes!!! According to the CBO, we are headed to a $20.3 trillion national debt by 2020 and that DOESN’T include any additional health care costs.
Government cannot give you anything if they haven’t first taken it from someone else. The share of the debt per household when President Obama assumed office was $56,000. It is $72,000 today and it will be $170,000 in 2020. We are spending tomorrow today and liberals don’t want you to notice!